Issues and risks

Issues capture a defect or change item against a project, including severity, reporter, owner and reported date. When an open issue has severity, Issue Triage moves it to Triaged and creates an operation receipt. A failed attempt also produces a receipt. Risks carry category, probability, impact, mitigation and owner so the project manager can monitor a threat before it becomes a delivery problem.

• Owner. QA Engineer records issue severity and checks the triage receipt; Developer follows the investigation after triage. Project Manager owns a separate risk record when the possible effect on schedule, cost or quality needs mitigation.
• Record. An issue belongs to a project and may have an owner. The triage workflow accepts only an Open issue with severity, then changes it to Triaged and writes a receipt. A risk has its own probability, impact and mitigation; changing an issue status does not update that risk.
• Decision. Check the issue receipt and risk mitigation separately before the delivery lead reports the exception.

Agree how the team assigns issue severity and risk ownership. An issue that lacks severity cannot pass the triage guard. Choose who reviews the open issue list each day and who updates mitigation as a risk moves from Open to Monitoring or Mitigated. Keep issue states and risk states distinct in discussions.

Rehearse this module with an active project and a package whose dates the team can discuss. Give each participant access to the linked records they need, then ask a second person to find the same owner, status and next action. Keep the original record available for the next review.

A critical issue is raised shortly before a deployment window. QA Engineer records severity and the project, and the triage action creates a receipt. The delivery lead looks at the triaged issue with the pending window and asks the owner for the next action. A related schedule risk can be monitored with its own mitigation.

A failed triage attempt still leaves an operation receipt. QA Engineer checks whether severity was absent or the issue had already left Open, then updates the issue itself. The project manager reviews the related risk independently.

After the triage receipt appears, check the issue owner. A severe item with no next person assigned still needs a clear handoff before the next release review.

• Open Issues — Find open, triaged and in-progress issues by severity and owner.
• Open delivery risks — Review open and monitored risks with their mitigation owners.

See plan and delivery, issue triage and release window review for the steps around this work.