Phlogiston

Phlogiston generates reports from Phabricator data, inspired by Scrum Burnup charts. "The name comes from the Ancient Greek φλογιστόν phlogistón (burning up)" and is pronounced like "FLOW", not "FLOG". For WMF Phlogiston reporting, see Phlogiston is currently in Maintenance mode; a number of existing users are supported, critical bug fixes are addressed; new features and new users are considered but resources are very limited. See Roadmap for more information.
 * Phlogiston reports show the size of project backlogs, the amount of work completed, and historical trends.
 * Phlogiston can forecast completion dates, and identify projects that are unlikely ever to finish.
 * Forecasts attempt to indicate their own (un)reliability.
 * Reports can divide appropriately tagged Phabricator tasks into different categories and report by category.
 * Phlogiston reports supplement your narrative about your team's work and progress, and can help identify cognitive biases that distort narratives.
 * Phlogiston reports are a complement, not a replacement, for in-depth understanding of backlogs, tasks, and context.
 * Live Phlogiston reports, updated daily.
 * Beta/backup Phlogiston reports, updated daily.

Questions Phlogiston can help to answer
Phlogiston reports are designed to help answer the following questions: Caveat: Phlogiston is strictly limited by the quality of data available in Phabricator, and on the presence of well-defined categories of work. The effort required to generate sufficiently detailed data in Phabricator may exceed the value of the reports.
 * Which of our defined categories of work are complete?
 * How much work remains until we reach a goal?
 * How long will that take?
 * How has the scope of a goal changed since we started?
 * What have we been working on?
 * How much of our recent work has not been high-priority work?
 * How much has not been relevant to quarterly goals?
 * What bottlenecks exist in our work processes?

Existing notes: Phlogiston reports by question.

Guide to Phlogiston Reports
All Phlogiston reports are provided in two forms: one based on Points and one based on Count of tasks. Teams using Points should consider both reports in combination; teams not using points can disable points reports. This section explains what all of the reports show, how to interpret them, and what various patterns of real-life development look like in Phlogiston.

Configuring Reports

 * Configuring Phabricator to be reportable
 * Figuring out which tasks to include in Phlogiston reports
 * Defining categories to be reported, via Project tags or board columns
 * Configuring Phlogiston
 * Defining a new scope of reporting
 * Lists of categories to include
 * Titles and labels
 * Settings and defaults

Installation and Operation

 * To set up Phlogiston for your own Phabricator instance, independently of WMF, see README.md.
 * Running Phlogiston

Design

 * Data Model
 * Data Loading Model
 * Forecasting Model
 * Examples of Systemic Bias

Links

 * Source Code
 * Meeting Notes