Say it like this
- Let's triage this issue in the standup
- We need to triage the backlog before sprint planning
- The team triaged the bugs and marked three as critical
Use it at work
Bugs
- Let's triage the new bugs this morning.
- Can you triage the support tickets?
During incidents
- First, triage. What's broken and who's affected?
- Triage shows only EU users are affected.
Process
- Bug triage is every Tuesday.
- Who's on triage this week?
Don't say this
Triage is the assessment step, not the fix itself. You triage first, then act based on the priority.
Don't mix it up
| Term | What it is | Who writes or uses it | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| triage | Sort issues by urgency | Engineers, support | New bugs, incidents |
| prioritize | Decide order of work | Product | Planning |
Practice
Try it
4 quick exercises
1. Your production database is slow. What do you say in the incident channel?
2. Before we start fixing bugs, we should _______ them to understand which ones are most critical.
3. Which sentence uses triage incorrectly?
4. Rewrite this in natural tech English using triage: We need to look at all these problems, decide which ones are the most serious, and then pick which ones our team will work on first.
Say it out loud
Phrase 1 of 3
"Let's triage this issue in the standup"
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More about triage
Real examples(3)
- in a standup
"We have three new bugs reported this morning. Let's triage them quickly to see which ones block the release."
- in a code review
"I found a performance issue in this PR, but we should triage it separately since it doesn't affect the current feature."
- in a team meeting
"The triage meeting determined that the authentication failures are P1, so everyone shifts focus to that today."
More mistakes(2)
Handle with care. Avoid using triage to mean simply fixing or solving — it specifically means assessing priority and severity first, not the action itself.
- ✕Can you triage this feature request?✓Can you triage this feature request and let me know the priority?
The full action of triage includes assigning priority or severity level, not just looking at something.
- ✕Triage the documentation is low priority.✓Triaging the documentation shows it's low priority.
Triage needs a clear object (what are you triaging?) and usually a result (what priority did it get?).
Other forms(4)
- triage noun
"The triage process helped us focus on the most critical bugs first."
- triage verb
"We triage all incoming support tickets every morning."
- triaged verb (past tense)
"The team triaged five incidents yesterday and resolved two of them."
- triaging verb (gerund)
"Triaging issues by severity helps us allocate resources effectively."
Often used with(6)
- triage meeting · A formal meeting where the team assesses and prioritizes issues together
- triage process · The standard steps a team follows to evaluate and rank problems
- triage queue · A list or backlog of items waiting to be assessed for priority
- triage issues · The most common verb phrase; assessing bugs or problems by severity
- triage tickets · Evaluating support or task management items to determine urgency
- triage bugs · Assessing reported defects to decide which to fix first
Similar words(3)
- prioritize · Broader term meaning to decide importance; triage is more specific to assessing severity in emergencies or backlogs
- assess · General term for evaluation; triage includes both assessment and assignment of priority level
- categorize · Simply grouping items; triage includes judgment about urgency and impact, not just sorting
Opposites(2)
- ignore
- backlog indefinitely
Questions(5)
- What does triage mean in software engineering?
- Triage is the process of assessing issues, bugs, or incidents to determine their severity and priority. It comes from medical emergency practices where patients are evaluated to decide who gets treatment first. In tech, triage ensures your team focuses on the most critical problems before less urgent ones.
- How do you use triage in a sentence at work?
- Common usage: We need to triage these bugs before the sprint starts. The support team triaged five tickets and marked two as urgent. During the incident, we triaged the affected services to understand the scope. You can use it as a verb (to triage) or a noun (the triage process).
- Is triage formal or informal?
- Triage is neutral — it is professional and used in formal meetings, documentation, and daily standups alike. It is common in incident response and sprint planning. While it originated in medical settings, it is now standard tech vocabulary.
- What is the difference between triage and prioritize?
- Triage is more specific and urgent. It involves both assessing severity and assigning priority levels, usually in response to a problem or backlog. Prioritization is broader and can apply to any list of tasks. You triage in emergencies or formal processes; you prioritize in general planning.
- What are common severity levels used in triage?
- Teams often use P0 (critical, requires immediate fix), P1 (high, fix soon), P2 (medium, plan for next sprint), and P3 (low, nice to have). Some teams use different labels like critical, major, minor, and trivial. Your company may have its own scale.
