task tracking

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 10:18:40AM -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
> In conversation with Paul this morning on #fedora-docs, he reminded me
> that whenever we have tried to manage Docs tasks with a wiki list or
> table, it quickly turns in to bitrot.
> 
> It's easy to put up a quick task list on a wiki page, but it's never
> sufficient, and it quickly turns to ignored dust until the next time
> we need it.  Then it's quickly updated (usually too late to make a
> difference), and we repeat the cycle.
> 
> I have some slim time I can give to Docs right now, and it looks to me
> like task tracking is a good thing to focus on.  It would assist
> project management, existing and new writers, and other teams relying
> upon knowing when Docs' work is being done.[1]
> 
> Folks in Fedora have been using Trac for this, because it is a task tracking
> tool primarily, and is pretty good for that.  For example:
> 
> https://fedorahosted.org/marketing-team/report/1
> 
> Any thoughts about this?
> 
> Would you all like me to take a shot at organizing all our tasks for
> the F13 release in to categorized and milestone-marked items in Trac?
> 
> If so, I'll run it for this release as best as I am able, and will be
> forcefully training the world so it can be less of a one-person item
> next time.  That includes documenting _how_ to use Trac for task
> management for this team, etc.
> 
> - Karsten
> 
> [1] https://www.theopensourceway.org/wiki/How_to_loosely_organize_a_community#Tasks.2C_tasks.2C_tasks_or_.27Project_management_matters.27

I don't have any investment in Trac other than that I use it
successfully elsewhere (to manage Board business for instance).  Trac
is fast(er than Bugzilla), queries are relatively easy to build, and
the milestone stuff is easier to understand than BZ too.  BZ is great
for tracking real content bugs, and I'm not suggesting we replace
that.  Heck, if people think it's just a waste of time to try and do
anything other than email and looking at John's schedule, I won't push
back.  Here are a couple of problems it might help us solve:

* Makes your agenda for you -- using a keyword and a query, you've got
  your weekly agenda.  (I do this elsewhere.)

* Milestones make it easy to see the discrete tasks that need to be
  done and by when.  That would help us focus our meetings on the
  deliverables for a Fedora release when needed, so we won't miss
  deadlines.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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