‘Fix One Software Bug, Create Three More’ Syndrome — Part 1: Symptoms and Consequences

The Syndrome causes significant loss of time, money, and leads to frustration for software teams.

Non-Medium Members: You can read this article for free on Substack.

In this article series:

• Part 1: Symptoms and Consequences
• Part 2: Why is it happening? *
• Part 3: Solution: Automated End-to-End (UI) Regression Testing (upcoming)
• Part 4: Why is this syndrome still unresolved at many software teams? (upcoming)

Today, I came across this Meme in my X feed.

Source: https://x.com/RyanEls4/status/1912422028063154575

This is what I called “‘Fix One Software Bug, Create Three More’ Syndrome for years.

In several cultures, the number ‘three’ is often used as an abstraction to represent ‘many,’ as illustrated in this Meme.

The Symptom

A production defect was identified and, following the bug triage process, a bug report was created in the defect tracking system (DTS, now often…