Beginner⏱ 5 min read

Defect Severity vs Priority

Severity and priority are two independent dimensions of every defect. Confusing them leads to misallocated development effort — either wasting time on low-impact bugs or shipping critical ones because they weren't flagged urgently enough.

◈Key Points

Severity: technical impact on the system (Critical, Major, Minor, Trivial) — set by the tester.
Priority: business urgency of the fix (High, Medium, Low) — set by the product owner or manager.
High severity, low priority: data corruption in a rarely-used admin panel — real problem, but not urgent.
Low severity, high priority: misspelling of the CEO's name on the homepage — trivial technically, urgent business-wise.
Both dimensions must be explicitly set and independently justified in the bug report.

⚡ Expert Pro Tip

Never let developers set their own bug priority — it's a conflict of interest. Priority should be a joint decision between QA, product, and business stakeholders.