Feature, enhancement or bug? The three kinds of task

A feature is something new: it did not exist and now it does. An enhancement changes something that already exists: it worked, and now it works better, or differently. A bug is something that is wrong: it was meant to do one thing and does another. Three kinds, and everything you will ever write down about a piece of software, a building job or a product is one of them. That is where the name fenbs comes from.

Why only three

Most tools let you make issue types: story, task, sub-task, epic, spike, chore, improvement, defect. Two teams using the same tool end up with different lists, and a new person has to learn which is which before filing anything. Three kinds is a list nobody has to learn. When something does not fit, the question “is it new, a change, or wrong?” always has an answer.

Where the kind shows

• In the reference. FE-014 is a feature, EN-015 an enhancement, BU-016 a bug. Change the kind and the letters change; the number never does.
• In the colour. Indigo for features, teal for enhancements, rose for bugs. Colour means kind and never urgency, so a board full of rose reads as “a lot of bugs” rather than “a lot of panic”.
• In the filters and the counts. How many bugs are open is a question the board answers directly.

Edge cases, decided

• “It works but it is slow.” An enhancement, unless it was fast before, in which case a bug.
• “Users keep asking for a button that exists but cannot find it.” An enhancement to how it is found. Not a bug: it works.
• “The design changed and the old screen is now wrong.” An enhancement. Wrong against the old spec is a bug; wrong against a new one is a change.