Following are some of the most commonly used defect metrics.
- Defect find rate: Objective is to find defects early in the test life cycle.Collects info as to defect found in regular intervals .say daily/weekly
- Defect fix rate: Objective is to find how the defect fixes happen in the development team w.r.t time.Focuses on collecting info on the defects fixed at regular intervals(daily/weekly)
- Outstanding Defect rate: This should be calculated after the completion of every test cycle.Total number of defects outstanding in the product=total defects found - total defects fixed.
- Priority outstanding rate: Defects are classified in to categories depending on the priority on the scale of 1-5 where 1 is high and 5 is low.A modification to outstanding defect rate curve by plotting only 'high priority' defects will result in the priority outstanding rate.When the priority outstanding defects are plotted ,the objective is to see the curve going towards zero during the test cycle.
- Defect Slippage: This metric measures the defects slipped by the QA team and found by the end-customers.Defect slippage%=No.,of field defects*100/(No.,of defects found by QA+field defects-Rejected defects)