How to keep our backlog healthier and improve the WIP visibility

[Agustín Benito Bethencourt <agustin benito codethink co uk>]

Dear BuildStream colleagues,

Each ticket has associated to it a significant amount of effort when measured 
over a period of time. As the project grows, more and more tickets become 
zombie in our ticketing system for a variety of reasons. Zombie or idle 
tickets increases the management overhead, reduces WIP visibility and backlog 
cleanness.

Please consider the following tips before opening a new ticket in order to 
reduce the risk of zombie tickets: 

   * Be sure there is a clear description of the problem or proposed actions 
when opening a new ticket. Add all the relevant information. Tickets are not 
for "suggestions", "inmature ideas", future considerations or similar. They 
should provide as much certainty as possible. Rely on the templates. Take them 
seriously.

   * Use the mailing list to shape the idea, to suggest something, to tackle 
an issue or to get feedback. Then, only when you are sure about what you 
intend, when the action is clear and can be described in a few lines or bullet 
points, when the bug is confirmed... open a ticket. 

Once you have opened a ticket, please be aware of the following: 

   * If you are the creator of a ticket, please make sure you follow up on it, 
specially when your colleagues add comments to it.

   * If there is no answer to your ticket in some time, use the mailing list 
to highlight its relevance when appropriate. Do not let it idle on the 
ticketing system for weeks. Ping the person you are expecting to answer. We 
might have overlooked it or have forgotten to answer to it. Do it kindly 
though. Remember that people might be busy with other activities.

   * If in the course of the discussion, the original description of the 
ticket is no longer valid, please modify it so it is always up to date. 
Remember that Gitlab keeps history of your changes. It is very important to 
have an up to date description.

   * If the ticket description requires a radical change as outcome of the 
discussion, please consider closing the ticket, opening a new one and relate 
both of them. By doing this you prevent people from going through all the 
comments only to understand what is the ticket really about.. If you create a 
ticket, you own it. Please keep them in shape. Your colleagues time is as 
important as yours. 

These enhancements will reduce not just the number of zombie tickets but also 
the amount of management effort required in keeping the WIP clean and a 
healthy backlog. At the same time, we will benefit from more and better 
discussions on the mailing list about topics that end up in actions items, 
increasing alignment. 

In summary, please consider to use the mailing list before opening a ticket. 
Remember that Google is better at searching than Gitlab, specially if we copy 
the mailman archive into some web tool. 

I will add these advice to the policy as Good Practices if you have no 
objection.

Best Regards
-- 
Agustín Benito Bethencourt
Principal Consultant
Codethink Ltd
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