Tim Williams wrote:
On 8/13/05, Ross Gardler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
...
In addition to this it is important that we keep track of what is going
on in terms of strategy. There are so many great ideas here in Forrest
that we simply can't implement them all.
Jira is the tool for keeping track of this stuff so that we can track
and prioritise things. However I'm not too sure what the best way of
utilising this resource is. DOes anyone have an experiences to share?
These aren't so much "experiences" as they are just thought.
If you're talking about "strategy" then I don't think JIRA is the
right tool for the job. Ideally I suppose one might use the "version"
filter to get an idea of what each version will contain, but frankly,
as one who looks at our JIRA quite often, I am overwhelmed by it and
am unable to see the forrest;) for the trees [or issues].
It is this overwhelmed feeling that I refer to. Jira is no use at
present because there are just too many unorganised issues. Just dumped
into rough version groups.
Jira has powerful filtering facilities, email notification (although it
seems to be broken right now), XML feeds and the like. We should utilise
it to keep track of what we *should* be doing. For example, would it be
useful to encourage users and devs to vote for issues?
The page, http://forrest.apache.org/forrest-issues.html doesn't help
me either.
Because it is generated from Jira and so suffers the same problem - it
*should* be useful.
I think what we need is a separate "Roadmap" document.
Jira can be used to manage that roadmap for us. However, David and I
talked about "Roadmaps" at ApacheCon. We felt that the term Roadmap
implies we *will* implement things in a given order. We need to be wary
of that as individual devs needs change.
Of course, there is a very strong argument for having a document that
gives an idea of what will be in the next version. Jira should be used
to create that last of issues.
I often use the 0.8-dev roadmap as my starting point in
Jira:http://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&mode=hide&sorter/order=DESC&sorter/field=priority&resolutionIds=-1&pid=12310000&fixfor=12310040
The problem with this is that most issues are not well classified (in
terms of priority) and there is no distinction between bugs,
improvements, taks etc.
Would it help to create a number of filters that would give better
"roadmap" documents from Jira
Not
to duplicate JIRA stuff but to provide them in a higher,
"feature"-level view rather than the granular, issue-level view that
we currently have.
I agree there is a need for such an organisation, but I would rather see
us utilising Jira in order to facilitate its management.
Jira as powerful linking between issues. There is nothing to stop us
creating a High level issue that links to the lower level implementation
issues. We can then export all "high level" issue descriptions to create
the "roadmap" document you describe. Jira will then help us create links
between all the dependant buds, issues, tasks etc.
I think this could help us in a few ways:
1) It would allow devs to "know" what other devs are working -- not to
hold them accountable, just so that we know if someone has actually
picked up the ball and ran with certain features. For example, I
didn't follow it that closely but the "interactive Forrest" menu was
discussed but we've don't really know (or i don't) if someone has
taken it up or not.
I agree to the benefit, but my approach would be different:
In Jira you assign the issue to yourself, this signals that you are
working on it. I added the interactive forrest issue to the tracker
precisely so that someone can do that.
Having an external "roadmap" document requires people to keep that up to
date as well - unlikely ;-) It will be hard enough to get people to
assign issues to themselves.
2) It would provide our users with a good idea of where we're heading.
This allows them to make better decisions on whether to use Forrest or
now (e.g., oh, i can see they're planning on getting this
functionality that I need in the next version, great). And it allows
them to provide input if there's a feature that they really need.
Yes, I agree with this too. But again creating a document means we need
to manage the document. I believe it would be better to use Jira the way
it should be used nd generate this document from it - that is what
http://forrest.apache.org/forrest-issues.html was supposed to be.
3) It would give us a standard way of documenting some of the
"strategic" discussions that happen on the list. Then after each
release we could have a couple threads that revise the roadmap as
needed for the next release based on itches at the time.
Again, why not use Jira for this recording? Discussions still happen on
list, but conclusions are put in jira where issues can be linked, cross
referenced and assignments can be tracked.
4) It would answer a question I've been having lately -- how do we
know when 0.8, 0.9, etc. is "done" and ready for release? Having a
feature list would allow us to check off sets of features, thus
knowing that we're ready for release when all of the issues associated
with the features are resolved. (i suppose there's an implicit or
explicity mapping between features and jira issues)
0.8 is done when the number of outstanding issues for 0.8 is 0. This is
one thing we *have* been using Jira for. But the problem is we have, in
the past, only turned our attention to Jira when we are getting a
release ready. So it only makes sense in those last stages.
I guess, I just think JIRA is not well suited for allowing people to
get their mind around the big picture of where we might be heading.
I would think it is the way we are using Jira that is the problem, not
Jira itself.
Do my comments above go any way of convincing people of this or am I
"barking up the wrong tree" (is that an UK or a universal saying? it's
about dogs chasing cats so I suppose it could be universal)
Ross
