Deferred risk

Not everything gets fixed or tested before a release. Deferring is legitimate when it is a decision: someone with the authority to accept the risk has seen what could go wrong, for whom, and has agreed to carry it until a stated date.

It becomes dangerous when it is only a label. “Known issue” and “minor issues remain” hide which journey is affected and who agreed. A deferral without an owner and a review date is a defect nobody wants to look at.

I write each deferral in the same parts: the journey, the gap, who meets it and how often, the workaround a real user can perform, who accepted it, and when it is reviewed.