Team Practices Group/Task Tracking

Phabricator Projects
The Team Practices Group (TPG) is tracking their work in two Phabricator projects. Each column in each project represents a state for open tasks.


 * 1) Team-Practices General team backlog. This is like a "Product Backlog".
 * 2) * To Triage
 * 3) * Team radar. The Team Radar column includes tasks that TPG is watching, but not necessarily working on.  The purposes are (a) to be able to recognize when a possible task becomes relevant and urgent, and (b) to preserve past discussion and planning for quick resumption of work.
 * 4) * General backlog
 * 5) Team-Practices-This-Week Work committed to in the current week. This is like a "Sprint backlog".
 * 6) * Backlog
 * 7) * Blocked or Waiting
 * 8) * In Progress
 * 9) * Needs Review
 * 10) * Done

Priority
TPG tracks task priority in several ways. The Priority field in Tasks reflects the priority as perceived by the reporter. This does not determine how and when TPG will address the task, but may influence triaging.

The priority of a task for TPG is determined first by which column and project the task is in, and then by the order of the task within each column. TODO: what is the relative order of the column and projects? e.g., if someone is assigned a task to review and a task to complete, which comes first?

Adding Work
Anyone can add new tasks at any time. New tasks are added to the To Triage column of the Team-Practices project.

Taking work
TPG members assign tasks to themselves - TODO: how/can this happen outside of Weekly Planning?

Finishing work
When a TPG member thinks they have completed a task: When reviewing a task:
 * 1) If the task needs review, ask (e.g., in IRC) who can review it
 * 2) assign it to them
 * 3) move the task to the In Review column
 * 4) If not
 * 5) assign the task to Arthur (?)
 * 6) move the task to the Done column
 * 1) If somebody else should review it next,
 * 2) assign it to them
 * 3) leave it in Needs Review
 * 4) If it is acceptable as-is,
 * 5) Option A: move to Done column and assign to Arthur
 * 6) Option B: comment in the ticket.  (In the next review meeting; move it to Done)
 * 7) If it needs changes, move to In Progress Column and assign back to

Getting Stuck
TBD

Backlog grooming
Conducted in a weekly meeting by Arthur + 1 rotating TPG member.
 * 1) Triage. For each item in the To Triage column of Team-Practices project, in descending order:
 * 2) Clarify the title and/or description
 * 3) If it can't be clarified, assign to the reporter to clarify, or to a TPG member to interview the reporter
 * 4) Set a priority if appropriate
 * 5) Move the task to Radar or General Backlog.
 * 6) Check Radar.  For each item in the Radar column, in descending order:
 * 7) Does this item need attention?  If so, treat as a To Triage item and move out of Radar column.
 * 8) Groom backlog.  For each item in the

Weekly Review
Conducted in a weekly meeting with all of TPG
 * 1) Check for Doneness.  For each item in the Done column of the Team-Practices-This-Week project, in descending order:
 * 2) Is this item Done? (Suggested: Arthur and original submitter (if not Arthur) decide together if it's Done.)
 * 3) If so, mark it resolved.
 * 4) If not, is it helpful to track the remaining work separately?
 * 5) If so, mark it resolved and open a new issue to cover remaining details
 * 6) If not, assign it to the appropriate person and move it back to In Progress or Blocked or Waiting.

Weekly Planning
Conducted in a weekly meeting with all of TPG.
 * 1) Review Needs Review.  For each item in the Needs Review column of the Team-Practices-This-Week project, in descending order:
 * 2) Understand the item status.
 * 3) If it's stuck, change priorities or assign to someone else
 * 4) Otherwise, leave as work in progress
 * 5) Review Progress. For each item in the In Progress column of the Team-Practices-This-Week project, in descending order, check these things (these ideally happened during the week; this is an opportunity to catch up on process.  TODO: maybe move these details to regular work during the week):
 * 6) If a task is blocked by a dependency or is waiting on someone's input, it is moved in to the Blocked or Waiting column.
 * 7) If a task needs review by another TPG member, it is moved in to Needs Review column and the person who should review it is assigned to the task.  The team limits reviews to four tasks at once (see the denominator if the fraction to the right in the column title- the nominator is the number of tasks actually in review).
 * 8) If new knowledge or new processes are generated, or currently undocumented, the responsible TPG party will create documentation on mediawiki.org.  TODO: move this to definition of done.
 * 9) Completed tasks are moved to the Done column.)
 * 10) Unstick stuck work.  For each item in the Blocked or Waiting column of the Team-Practices-This-Week project, in descending order:
 * 11) Start new work.  For each item in the Backlog column of the Team-Practices-This-Week project, in descending order:
 * 12) Does anyone want to take this and start working on it this week?
 * 13) TPG members assign tasks to themselves.
 * 14) Is the task ready to start?  Person taking the task clarifies in the meeting or identifies how to get more information.
 * 15) Tasks being worked on are moved to the "In Progress" column.
 * 16) The team tries to limit Work In Progress to six tasks in progress at once (see the denominator if the fraction to the right in the column title- the nominator is the number of tasks actually in progress ).
 * 17) Pull from the General Backlog
 * 18) pull new issues from the General Backlog into the This Week backlog (which might include creating new subtasks of epics).
 * 19) Tasks prioritized to be worked on in the current week from the Backlog Workboard are moved to the backlog column of the Team Practices This Week Workboard. TODO: does this happen in Weekly Planning or Grooming?
 * 1) Tasks prioritized to be worked on in the current week from the Backlog Workboard are moved to the backlog column of the Team Practices This Week Workboard. TODO: does this happen in Weekly Planning or Grooming?