- Create a severity matrix with clear definitions of Critical, High, Medium, and Low severity issues.Align it with business impact, user experience, and system stability. - Show evidence like logs, test reports, and customer impact analysis to justify severity levels. - Organize a QA issue review meeting with developers, product owners, and business stakeholders.Use a structured discussion format where each stakeholder explains their view. - Align issue severity with business goals, compliance needs, and customer expectations. - If stakeholders disagree, suggest a temporary solution while monitoring the issue’s impact.

Understanding of severity of any issues depends on personnel’s experience and knowledge while his/ her ability to forecast an impact of that issue. Some trivial issues seem to be very critical and vice versa. Its better to have a common approach to arrive an any severity number.

Severity shall be always linked to patient safety, product quality and regulatory requirements. Same is explained to stakeholders, irrespective of issue.

When stakeholders have differing opinions on QA issue severity, aligning their perspectives can be challenging. 1. Establish a Common Understanding Define a clear, shared understanding of QA issue severity levels. Use industry-standard terminology and criteria to ensure everyone is on the same page. 2. Categorize and Prioritize Issues Use a standardized framework to categorize and prioritize QA issues based on their severity, impact, and urgency. This helps stakeholders focus on the most critical issues. 3. Facilitate Open Communication Encourage open and transparent communication among stakeholders. Regular meetings, workshops, or online forums can help resolve differences and align perspectives.

To unite stakeholders on QA severity, the defect that is being evaluated needs to have previously established criteria based on the damage it can cause. While methods of quality severity can range from simple to complex, the method should be based on your company’s issues. The severity of the issue should also be matched with an action. For example, if the shade of a color is slightly faded, but no information is compromised, it may be considered a minor issue and still be used. If the printing on an item is missing or incorrect and can result in an injury or warrant a recall, it is a severe issue and should not be used. Having these previously established criteria help to take out the subjectivity of understanding the severity of issues.