Open Bugs
Open Bugs tracks the total number of unresolved bug tickets at a point in time. It offers insight into ongoing defect load and helps teams evaluate whether quality is degrading or backlog management is effective.
Calculation
Count all active tickets labeled as “bug” or equivalent in the issue tracking system. Include tickets that are open, in progress, or under triage, and exclude those marked as resolved, closed, or duplicate.
Trends are most useful when tracked daily, weekly, or per sprint.
The metric can be expressed as:
open bugs = total unresolved bug tickets at snapshot time
Goals
Open Bugs helps teams gauge active defect workload and focus remediation efforts effectively. It answers questions like:
- Is our backlog growing faster than we can resolve?
- Which components or systems have the most open issues?
- Do we need to allocate resources to ongoing bug cleanup?
This measure supports prioritization decisions and helps prevent defect build-up that can slow delivery or erode trust.
Variations
Open Bugs may also be referred to as Active Defects, Outstanding Bug Count, or Bug Backlog Size. Teams often segment counts by priority levels.
- High priority (P0/P1): Critical or showstopper bugs requiring immediate resolution.
- Medium priority (P2): Important issues affecting functionality but with workaround.
- Low priority (P3/P4+): Minor or cosmetic issues that can be deferred.
Tracking priority segments helps teams balance urgent fixes with long-term quality work. Studies show focusing only on total counts can mask buildup of high-severity issues.
Limitations
Open Bugs counts volume but not bug complexity, usage impact, or resolution cost. It also assumes accurate tagging and classification.
Some low-priority bugs may intentionally stay open until cleanup capacity is assigned. To better understand impact, pair this metric with:
| Complementary Metric | Why It’s Relevant |
|---|---|
| Bug Closure Rate | Indicates if resolution speed keeps up with defect inflow |
| Stale Defect Percentage | Reveals whether unresolved bugs are aging without attention |
| Defect Rate | Shows how many new bugs are opened compared to open backlog |
Optimization
Improving Open Bugs depends on prioritizing effectively and investing in cleanup processes.
- Triage bugs regularly by priority and severity. Ensure high-impact defects are surfaced and resolved quickly.
- Assign ownership and resolution timelines. Use SLAs for critical bugs and enforce accountability.
- Clean low-priority bugs proactively. Close cosmetic or obsolete tickets to reduce noise in reporting.
- Balance capacity for bugs in planning. Allocate sprint time or separate bug-fix cycles to prevent unchecked backlog growth.
- Monitor bug trends per component. Use segmentation to detect hotspots and invest in technical debt reduction where needed.
Open Bugs is not just a tally. It is a leading signal of backlog health. When high-priority counts grow, delivery risks increase. When total counts stabilize with priority segmentation, teams gain clarity and confidence in their software quality.
