Hi all,
Made some changes to JIRA to help with release planning. Please review this JIRA glossary first:
http://confluence.immuexa.com/display/sq/Process
If the terms don't seem to make sense, then return to the glossary and read them again and again.
I've used JIRA with a wide variety of software teams over the last five years, so please rely upon my experience until it becomes more familiar.
JIRA is used by Apache and many other large open-source projects ... there's truly a "there" there, but only if you relax and use it as it was designed to be used.
The changes:
1. "must-have" = critical priority
2. "desirable" = normal priority
3. "possible" = eventual priority
4. "desirable but complex or risky" = optional priority
5. "published!" = closed
6. "ready for testing" = resolved
7. "internationalization" = moved in with the rest (in 4.1 release)
8. "pango" = moved in with the rest (in 4.1 release)
9. "dormant, residual, historical" = optional priority in someday release
10. two big versions ... "etoys 4.0 - summer 2009" and "etoys 4.1 - winter 2010" (summers will be even numbered, winters will be odd numbered)
The reason for all of this is so that we can actually look at the roadmap and see where we are. Things were too fragmented. They were going against the way JIRA works.
So now, there's three release bins showing on the roadmap:
a. review ... all new stuff goes here and gets moved elsewhere after discussion
b. etoys 4.0 ... current release
c. biz/ed ... these are the non-Etoys items that the business and education teams must do
There will always be these three at the top of the release road map ... click "all versions" to see etoys 4.1, etc.
Anyway, I hope this makes things clearer. As you continue to use JIRA, you'll see that many tools exist that require this functionality. (Try "Find Issues", for example, then click "New".)
So if you're wondering:
* what should I test? Click "Resolved" under Project Summary o see a list of resolved issues. These need testing.
Add a comment saying, "works for me" and then put the change to the update stream and click "Closed" (aka Published)
Would other words be more clear? Perhaps to some. In my opinion, let's all try to learn these five states (scheduled, in progress, resolved, closed) and five priorities (blocker, critical, normal, eventual, optional). They work.
Also, remember ... the best view is "road map" ... it sorts by priority into releases. It also has a nifty green & red progress bar that motivates.
Now, I'm going back into my post-Squeakfest cave for a while ... in the next week or so, please help move things in "review" or "etoys 4.0" that we can't do easily in the next few weeks to "etoys 4.1"
Our overall goal is to have Etoys 4.0 be all green in the roadmap. Another goal is to have zero issues in "review".
Sorry for the draconian changes, but I couldn't get my finger on the pulse of the release the way it was. This is a better way to work.
Tim