Another Management Addition

One more thing I want to start implementing is tracking what we are all doing. I was thinking we would have a forum topic devoted to a task you are working on, giving us all an insight into progress, what’s happening, etc.



Also, we need a way of assigning tasks (one at a time) when they are needed. To insure two people aren’t working on the same thing and stepping on toes.



Would you prefer new forum topics:



Tasks (get your tasks here, suggest a desire to work on something)

Mark Powell (I’ll talk about what I’m working on)

Josh Slack (Talk about what he is working on)

Jack Lindamood (Ditto)





or



Tasks (get your topic, and as you progress post to the same thread that the item was assigned).

Good idea! I know I’ve held onto a few dev items for too long in the past. :slight_smile:



As for the topics, I guess the first way would allow us to see a developer’s status while the other would allow us to see a task’s status. Although the first would be personally interesting, perhaps a per task view would be more benefitial to people as a whole. I would suggest though that only forum moderators be able to post in that forum if possible so that tasks can be handed out in an organized manner.

A whole forum for one person. Would it be more organized to create a "Developer task list" forum, and have a topic for me that only I can post too, a topic for you that only you can post to, ect (or does the forum software support this? )

Or if you can’t make threads “user only”, create a forum where only developers can post but everyone can read and have the developers just agree not to post in other people’s development threads.

Got them set up, give it a shot. You should only be able to post to your forum. Everyone should be able to read though.

"Cep21" wrote:
A whole forum for one person. Would it be more organized to create a "Developer task list" forum, and have a topic for me that only I can post too, a topic for you that only you can post to, ect (or does the forum software support this? )

I agree with cep21, I think that the way the form is set up now is two cluttered.

I don’t believe that’s what Cep said…

"mojomonk" wrote:
I don't believe that's what Cep said...

It was my understanding that cep21 said that a form for each developer was two much and that there should only be one topic for each developer. I said that I agree with him that there should be only one thread for each developer and then gave my reason, which was that the main form page was two crowded. I apologies if I misoundrstould him.

First… It’s good to see some active project management, Mojo. I like what you’re trying to accomplish. (Unlike the project management where I work, which is completely useless.)



I tend to agree with what Cep and Badmi were saying, though. One forum per developer is probably going to make things a little cumbersome, especially if more developers come on board later on.



Having a ‘Dev Tasks’ forum with locked topics for the developers might make things a little cleaner. I would completely expect that there would be multiple topics per developer in that forum, though… just locked to the general public.



One last thing… This is just to let people know what the developer is working on? I guess any of these ‘locked’ formats assume that you guys don’t want to discuss any of the stuff you’re working on… it’s purely a task list? Is there a need for some kind of mechanism for people to ask questions or suggest ideas about a particular task… or anything like that?



Just my .02 after seeing the new forums.





–K

Ok, I guess it was me who misunderstood Cep. Sorry Badmi.



Is that the overall feeling? The individual developer forums are cluttering the board? The reason I put them up individually is we can now just chat about what we are doing, basically blog (they could be about anything). I thought people might enjoy reading whatever ramblings we have.



Anyways, if people feel it’s too cluttered, I’ll reorganize it.

I hardly feel important enough for my own board :slight_smile:

Mojo…



Blogs actually sound like a good idea as well. I’d probably make them a separate section, though… keep the task lists separate. Blogs are great for mulling over thoughts, releasing stress (for the writer), rambling off general future plans… etc. There’s some significant value in hearing the developers thoughts in this type of format.



To me personally… that’s a separate thing from specific task lists saying sussinctly what you’re working on and its status. Those things will likely be mentioned in a blog, but only as part of it.



Just my thoughts on it. I don’t have a strong preference or anything… I just think it’ll be a little cleaner. And, to reiterate, I like the blog idea.





I hardly feel important enough for my own board


Bah.. Don't say that, Cep! We all see what you do around here. You're a huge asset to jME.


--K

I removed the Blog as a Forum idea (people were right, it didn’t quite seem to fit). I’m trying to figure out a way to add other peoples dev logs to the front page (right now there is only mine). Figuring out the permission stuff in Mambo is a bit of a pain.

"mojomonk" wrote:
Also, we need a way of assigning tasks (one at a time) when they are needed. To insure two people aren't working on the same thing and stepping on toes.

Maybe some kind of dedicated management system ? Jira is quite simple and free for open-source projects, scarab is more powerful, but needs a bit more customization to be really useful. Bugzilla is probably an overkill for anything less than 50 developers.

I would suggest using scarab if you don't mind spending few days on preparations, jira if you want something out of the box in one day.