My current client uses an internal defect logging system rather than a proprietary tool. It doesn’t have separate “severity” and “priority” fields, instead we have two fields called “Priority” and “Internal Priority”. In practice testers no longer use the former at all, since all priorities bar the default are now reserved for issues raised by customers via the help desk. So testers use the latter as “our” priority to identify those bugs that need fixing urgently. It’s a numeric field which allows priorities from 1 to 999, although we don’t use anything like the full range.

Without getting into jargon-laden moon-language or buzzword-parody words like “Seriosity”, I’ve used the following two factors in assigning values to this when logging defects found during testing.

First take the importance of the feature in question, on a scale of one to three.

1 – Critical feature on the end-to-end life-cycle of the object under test
2 – Important but non-critical feature
3 – Minor or little-used feature

Note that I’m using “Feature” rather than “Function” here, and the definition of a feature is a level of granularity below the module it’s logged against. For example, a search module blowing up when you press “Go” would be a 1, but an advanced search criteria on the third tab not returning the correct rows might be a 2 or a 3.

Second, take the impact of the bug on the feature in question:

1 – Feature unusable with no workaround
2 – Workaround exists but significant inconvenience to the user
3 – More irritation than inconvenience

Then multiply the two figures together, and you get a figure from 1 to 9 (The numerically-literate among you will notice that you’ll never get 5,7 or 8), and assign that as the Internal Priority. So a critical feature that just doesn’t work at all will be Internal Priority 1, an inconvenience with a workaround on an important function will be 4, and so on.

It’s a bit quick-and-dirty. I know. But it works well enough, and is a little less subjective than “Think of a number between one and six”, and the product owner always has the option of raising or lowering it later.

What rules of thumb to you use for assigning priorities, severities, seriosities or whatever? Are testers even responsible for assigning priorities at the time of logging, or is the deferred to the product owner or a bug triage meeting?

Great guest post by Gregory Spawton of Big Big Train on the National Railway Museum blog about the inspiration for the song East Coast Racer, from their latest album “English Electric Part 2″.

I really need to get round to reviewing that album for this blog. Like it’s predecessor it’s steeped in English history and landscapes, telling stories of the heroes in the industrial revolution, all set to music that evokes the spirit of 70s English progressive rock in a way that no neo-prog bands comes close to achieving.

Trevor Bolder was part of David Bowie’s Spiders From Mars in the early 70s, but for most of the past three and a half decades he’s been an integral part of Uriah Heep. A great bass player, as anyone who’s seen Uriah Heep in recent years will attest, and taken from us far too soon. He’d stepped down from Uriah Heep due to ill-health earlier this year, with Arena and former IQ bassist John Jowitt standing in for him, but had hoped to return to the band in the summer.

I’ve seen him with Uriah Heep many times, and I will never forget that barnstorming performance at the 2009 Cambridge Rock Festival, when the band came on something like two hours late because of technical problems, and just blew the doors off. His powerful bass playing contributed a lot to the huge energy of Uriah Heep’s live performances.

I only ever met him the once, and only briefly, at the Uriah Heep acoustic show in London back in 2000, but he came over as a lovely guy. He will be greatly missed.

This is a draft list of the skills a organisation can have. They’re not the same skills as those used by characters. How does this look as a list?  Is there anything obvious missing? Can some be merged and/or replaced by aspects?

Power
Power is a measure of the amount of direct legal, political, military or equivalent force the organisation can call upon. The precise nature of their power should be apparent from their aspects. A legion will have different sort of power to a city government that can call upon the legion, and both will be very different from crime syndicate which has a bit of “muscle”.

Influence
Influence is a measure of the “soft power” of the organisation. It’s a combination of reputation and more subtle political, social and economic links. As with Power, the precise nature an organisation’s influence should be apparent from their aspects. Religious groups and philosophical movements are likely to have an Influence far higher than their Power, as will merchant companies.

Reach
Reach is a measure of how far the organisation’s tentacles reach. Low reach indicates that the organisation is confined to one location, and their power and influence doesn’t extend much beyond that. Very high reach indicates that they have a presence more or less everywhere.

Secrecy
Secrecy is the measure of how the organisation can act without it’s actions being traced back to it, and how difficult the organisation’s workings are to penetrate from outside. Low secrecy means everything they do tends to be highly visible, and they don’t go in for covert actions or plausible deniability (or if they do, they’re not very good at it). High secrecy means they’re far better at pulling strings behind the scenes, and many of their actions happen in the shadows. If secrecy is their highest skill, it could even mean that their very existence is unknown to most people. Spy networks and underground cults should have high secrecy.

Resources
Resources is the measure of an organisation’s wealth. Not just liquid cash, it includes assets such as land, buildings or exclusive control of some important resource. If the source of an organisation’s wealth is very specific or has a lot of story potential, it should be represented by an aspect. And organisation’s wealth should be reflected in the standard of living of their membership from their leadership down to the rank and file. If it isn’t, there’s a story there, and therefore an aspect.

Knowledge
Knowledge is the measure of what the organisation knows, and how good it is at finding things out. Temples or guilds with vast libraries of information will naturally have a high rank in Knowledge. So will an extensive and efficient spy network.

Unity
Unity is simply how united the organisation is. Low unity indicates an organisation riddled with factions and internal strife, and a leadership which does not necessarily have everyone’s full support. High unity indicates the opposite; strong loyalty and common sense of purpose across all levels.

Administration
Administration is a measure of how effectively the organisation is run, and the strength of internal communications, both of which will be reflected in how rapidly the organisation can react. A low rank in this means that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, or everything is bogged down in red tape, either of which makes it hard to get anything done.

Aside from some serious factual innacuracies that betray a lack of basic research, he describes the hugely influential guitarist as “the anonymous Hackett, the quintessential low-profile sideman“, then comes up with bollocks like “but your spirits sink when he is joined by 80s electropop also-ran Nik Kershaw and Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery“, and ends with  “but what a dispiritingly redundant evening this is“. It really is one of those awful 1980s NME style reviews that tells you far more about the prejudices of the reviewer than it does about the show itself.

I can’t think of any other genre of music where reviews of this nature have sadly come to be expected. The reason I’m going to the effort of calling it out is because The Guardian has been getting better. Recognising that they lacked knowledge of prog and metal they signed up Dom Lawson, who’s given favourable reviews to the likes of Opeth’s “Heritage” and Steve Wilson’s latest opus. Then they risk all this new-found goodwill by sending the same reviewer who wrote this pile of utter cobblers about Caravan. Somebody who can’t review a prog gig without constantly referencing punk needs to stop trying to review prog.

A better writer like Alexis Petridis would at least have attempted to engage and try to understand what Steve Hackett was trying to achieve, even if the music was outside his personal comfort zone. But Gittins’ review just reinforces the widely-held perception that The Guardian is where superannuated NME hacks go to die. They can and should do better than this.

I have seen some comments written about myself or Gavin having ‘left’ Mostly Autumn, which I think it’s important to say was Never actually said…

The truth of the situation is, while other commitments keep us 2 exceptionally busy, Mostly Autumn have (rightly) drafted in new and highly-talented folks to fulfil their line-up, and for this year’s shows that’s what the live line-up will be.

But as for future tours, nothing is decided yet; and as ever, Bryan and his team will only do what is 100% right for the band, on a tour-by-tour basis!

So, I would urge you to show nothing but support and love for Mostly Autumn – both the band members and all the team – as they now dive into the next set of tour dates and pursue lots of great opportunities throughout the year! )

I will be on stage with Panic Room, and sometimes solo, and maybe with the new acoustic project Luna Rossa (at some point!)…. But I will also have one eye looking out from the wings onto the Mostly Autumn stage, and watching them with immense pride and love, for they are some of my closest and loveliest friends! And I know they’ll Rock as hard as ever this year.

Reading the original announcement, it’s easy to see why many people interpreted things the way they did, even though as Anne-Marie correctly points out, that’s not what the announcement actually says. And while nothing has been decided yet, I know I’m not the only one hoping that Anne-Marie does return to the band at some point. Indeed, I’d love to see the new singer Hannah Hird retained as well, resulting in a return to the eight-piece lineup with the big vocal harmonies, which is one thing I’ve missed since Olivia Sparnenn took over as lead singer in 2010.