[Dev-flock] Issue Tracking

[Lucy Mendel]

Pepe,
  It's a good point. We tried using tickets before and moved to
xplanner for the reasons given below. Currently, I would not want to
track issues in two places, so hopefully we can continue to use
xplanner. I am supposed to keep the tech side of xplanner up to date
with tasks, and send out encouraging cheers and reminders to pick
things up, so perhaps this just means I need to be more proactive.

Chia, a form would be easier than email, which is easier than logging
on as guest/guest to xplanner and using the Feedback to be sorted
story
   http://whynoti.org:8080/xplanner/do/view/iteration?projectId=0&returnto=%2Fdo%2Fview%2Fprojects&oid=496

We also have a survey.

Here is the history of task management and issue tracking at ThoughtAndMemory:

_task management_ consists of planning out what needs to get done and
making sure everyone has something interesting to work on.
_issue tracking_ consists of recording and tracking progress on
features and bugs.

there is a lot of overlap between these two concepts; unfortunately,
tools to help manage these issues do not overlap!

We've been focussed on task management for much of our history because
we lacked a mature user base and product to warrant a lot of incoming
issues. While building the product we have a huge list of tasks to
organize and prioritize, which fits better with task management.

First we used a todo file in the repository. Then we used a wiki page.
Then we used trac tickets. None of these worked very well because we
did not collectively keep them up to date. They also proved opaque to
the rest of the organization.

Sometime in February/March of this year we decided the organization
needed a better task manager. I was about to set up trac tickets once
again, but realized it was not as user friendly as we needed.
Xplanner is a much better task manager for the organization at large.
hopefully ya'll have been finding it useful, as well (feedback
welcome. our process continues to evolve).

There's been some disagreement over how to track issues. Do we use a
separate system or do we try to fit the issues into xplanner? For now,
we've selected the later. Emails are good to keep everyone informed
that there are new issues--unless we all get into the habit of
checking xplanner daily, which seems poor (if only it had a feed...).

Conclusion:

For now:
WHen emailing out an issue please include the URL to its story or task
in xplanner. That way everyone will know it has a place in the backlog
and won't get forgotten or double picked up. Email URLs are
convenient. It's better if everyone is comfortable modifying xplanner,
but sending an email is better than nothing; I'll enter things into
xplanner as they fly by.

In the near future we may want to look into integrating xplanner with
bug tracking software, or else using a bug tracking software
independently.

Also,
if you have a random issue to report and don't know where to put it,
then leave it in the
    Feedback to be sorted project
http://whynoti.org:8080/xplanner/do/view/iteration?projectId=0&returnto=%2Fdo%2Fview%2Fprojects&oid=496

Lucy.


On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 12:13 PM, analucia berry <analuciaby at gmail.com> wrote:
> Isnt this what xplanner is supposed to help out with? Or are you talking
> about something on top of xplanner?
>
> clay: you should put the bugs you found on xplanner (for now at least). I've
> been thinking that there should be a way for users to send in bugs they
> find, and to make it easier, something like a form, not an email address to
> send to.
>
> *chia
>
> On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 7:27 AM, Christopher Pepe <cougarvt at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Does TAM have any sort of issue tracking in place?  We are already
>> running trac which has a mediocre ticket tracking system - is there
>> any desire to use it?  It seems that it would be easier to keep track
>> of all the issues Clay had at Brambleberry if there were tickets that
>> could be assigned/taken by developers.  That helps ensure these known
>> issues don't slip through the cracks.  Just a thought as the team
>> grows...  ~Pepe
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