Management tools for large initiatives

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What's your idea?

The issue queue is not a PM tool. With more and more big initiatives around (e.g. Drupal core initiatives and others) we need better tools to manage their processes.

What are the benefits?

Possibility to efficiently manage large initiatives on Drupal.org. Without the need to use external PM tools, and without the need to use book pages or issues which are not suited for this purpose.

What are the risks?

How can we measure the impact of this idea? (metrics)

Initiatives are more efficient, more people participate. Initiative leads happy.

Who directly benefits from / will use this improvement? (target audiences)

Contributors to various initiatives, initiative leads.

Are additional resources available for discovery/implementation? (volunteer effort, financial backing, etc.)

Comments

rgristroph's picture

I see the need, but I don't see something we could spend resources on and get a worthy result from. All the PM tools currently in use are just hacked-up issue trackers and gantt chart builders anyway. Project Management of software projects is just not something our industry has made very scientific or rigorized.

Some of the most well-run projects I have worked on used a whiteboard, maybe a couple of google docs spreadsheets, and a few wiki pages to run everything. In general, the more sophisticated the tools, the worse the project was run.

This isn't to say I don't see the pain and feel the need, but I just don't see getting any result back from the investment in this.

Effort vs return - use external tools?

damienmckenna's picture

I think it'd be a lot of effort to build, it might be better to use e.g. Trello or other PM systems instead?

I agree with the criticism

gábor hojtsy's picture

I agree this is a HUGE pain point and I am one who built rocketship that is used as an issue board by many initiatives based on data pulled from drupal.org. I think the main pain point is the (a) lack of data API where those issues are exposed (b) the lack of interaction API to update issue data from a 3rd party system (c) the lack of such 3rd party system that could be integrated using such APIs.

So I fully agree about the pain, I have no good idea ATM about the solution. I would need a couple days at least to go look for options on what is available, how can one integrate with 3rd party APIs, etc.

Drupal.org 2014 roadmap brainstorming

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