Work Items Management (was: Re: [libreoffice-design] LibreOffice Conference 2011, Personal Summary)

Hi Nik, all!

Hey, thanks for going forward ... :-)

Am Dienstag, den 25.10.2011, 01:41 +1100 schrieb Nik:
[...]
> I've created a quick copy on my own wiki user-page to run past you 
> before making any changes to the actual task-list.
> Please check this link;
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:Nik#Proposed_rearrange_of_Design_Work_items

An improvement, of course. But I'd like to add some more thoughts... The
most important question to me is, whether the availability of the
existing list did attract anybody to work on such items. Most of them
are still open ... unfortunately.

What I became aware in discussions at the FOSDEM, the Hackfest and the
LibO conference is, that we miss a simple way to explain new
contributors what they can do. I even discussed whether we could learn
from the EasyHacks (or EasyTasks) the developers offer - currently they
have been moved to Bugzilla, because they became unmanageable.

On the other hand, a recent (larger) tasks list would be immensely
helpful for me as well ...

So, where do we currently work on tasks and have some task management?
      * http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design#Work_Items
      * http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards (already
        having a simple Recent Topics / Past Topics section)
      * Bugzilla (usually smaller tasks)
      * libreoffice-ux-advise (usually smaller tasks, if bigger, then
        moved to a Whiteboard)

Back to your proposal - would it help to change the objective of the
tasks list? My take ... a rough proposal:
      * Larger task will (should) automatically require a Whiteboard
        page. The whiteboards overview page might benefit from your
        proposed structure.
      * Smaller tasks that new contributors (with varying skills) might
        take, should go to a separate section like EasyTasks /
        StarterTasks. A similar structure to the task list (which still
        keeps the fun) is required here.
      * All other tasks that are less urgent, nobody takes care of
        quickly  should go to an "Open Tasks" list. Just to not forget
        them ...
      * Bugzilla and libreoffice-ux-advise should stay as they are.

What do you think?

> I would propose we;
>
>     * Separate out items that are "ACTIVE", "ON-HOLD" and "COMPLETED"
>       into three separate tables so that people interested in doing
>       things only have to check the top table.

Sounds very good, especially the "on-hold", because many items are
simply neither active nor completed.

>     * Keep the items in the tables short so that our members can more
>       easily see what needs attention right now and what is going on
>       that they would be interested in. Colour coding will help. More
>       detailed information should just be linked to.

Color coding means that somebody has to decide on the priority ...
that's something I'm unsure within a community (from experience, most
people pick the tasks they do like ... whether these are important or
not). On the other hand, I would assign a "high priority" to the
Download Page realization :-)

>     * We need to have deadlines, whether we meet them or not (because we
>       are all volunteers). Otherwise everything will end up as an
>       incomplete task that lasts forever.

Yep, if we agree that these should guide but hurt (in terms of
deadlines). Just curious - is there an other term for that?

>     * We need to have a client and a representative who speaks on their
>       behalf. That will give us a point of reference rather than having
>       endless internal communication.

Yep. At least someone will send the request ...

However, I think another helpful thing would be to provide information
that tells what we need if someone requests a certain item (I've
collected some ideas for visual design elements, but did not send them
to the list / wiki yet ... maybe the next task).

>     * We need to be organised and update this ourselves and move
>       finished jobs out, or move jobs that are on-hold into that table.
>       They shouldn't just stay in the active table.

True, but this will need help by everybody ... which I currently miss a
lot. We have many people on this list, but only veeery few who are
active (whatever small or larger task it may be).


> and most drastically;
>
>     * *We should LIMIT the number of active tasks to just 3-4.* Anything
>       else should not be added until something can be taken off and
>       moved to the completed table. With fewer tasks, we can focus more,
>       we can track them better, we can push them out faster, we can
>       unify our fragmented efforts and we can be held accountable when
>       we don't get things done, because it will show.

Mmh, I really like that for my own stuff ... when looking back at the
last weeks, my work might have appeared a bit unfocused. (Which it
wasn't, of course *g*). However, can we really limit the number of tasks
for if people are free to chose where to spend effort?

If we can agree that "active tasks" means something like "Tasks in
Focus", then I'm fine.


> What do you think?
>
> And just to prove I mean business, I'll happily listen to input on this 
> matter until the 31st of October. On the 1st of November, whether we are 
> ready or not, we will make changes to improve the work items page;
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Work_Items

Well, maybe more input that you've expected ... you should surely read
it as "being happy that you kicked that off" :-)

Cheers,
Christoph


> On 11.10.23 09:26, Christoph Noack wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I noticed some discussions that might relate to discussions we've had at
> > the LibreOffice Conference last week. So, if you want to spend some
> > minutes, then here is my personal summary:
> > http://luxate.blogspot.com/2011/10/libreoffice-conference-2011-personal.html
> >
> > If anything is missing or unclear ... please ask :-)
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Christoph



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