Severity Definitions

The problem report sections in this document refer to bug severity levels. Definitions of these levels can be found in the publication, TL 9000 Quality Management System Measurement Handbook.

Problem Report: A report from a customer or on behalf of the customer concerning a product or process defect requesting an investigation of the issue and a resolution to remove the cause. The report may be issued via any medium.

Problem reports are systemic deficiencies with hardware, software, documentation, delivery, billing, invoicing, servicing, or any other process involved with the acquisition, operation, or performance of a product. An incident reported simply to request help to bring back the service or functionality to normal without the intent to investigate and provide a resolution to the cause of the incident is not a problem report.

1. Critical: Conditions that severely affect the primary functionality of the product and because of the business impact to the customer requires non-stop immediate corrective action regardless of time of day, or day of the week as viewed by a customer on discussion with the organization such as:
   • Product inoperability (total or partial outage),
   • A reduction in the capacity capability, that is, traffic/data handling capability, such that expected loads cannot be handled,
   • Any loss of emergency capability (for example, emergency 911 calls), or
   • Safety hazard or risk of security breach.
2. Major: Product is usable, but a condition exists that seriously degrades the product operation, maintenance, or administration, etc., and requires attention during pre-defined standard hours to resolve the situation.
   The urgency is less than in critical situations because of a less immediate or impending effect on product performance, customers, and the customer's operation and revenue such as:

   • Reduction in product's capacity (but still able to handle the expected load),
   • Any loss of administrative or maintenance visibility of the product and/or diagnostic capability,
   • Repeated degradation of an essential component or function, or
   • Degradation of the product's ability to provide any required notification of malfunction.
3. Minor: Other problems of a lesser severity than "critical" or "major" such as conditions that have little or no impairment on the function of the system.

The numbered severity levels in the tables below correspond to these definitions of 1-Critical, 2-Major, or 3-Minor.