Bug reports — treat as a “presenting complaint”

In a recent podcast I heard Noah Gibbs discuss the concept of presenting complaint when dealing with bug reports.

This language is taken from the medical world and is also referred to as the “chief complaint”.

I found this concept helpful in how we think about bug reports. It leads to a helpful separation of the symptom and the potential underlying cause of the symptom.

Sometimes the symptom may not even be a “problem” with the system but something not matching the expectation of the complainant.

“Phone number not appearing in Order summary” may be the complaint but there may have been decisions made as to why the phone number only appears in the full order details page and not in the summary. Someone disagreeing with how something has been implemented is not necessarily something that needs fixing.