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Ask Slashdot: Issue Tracker For Non-Engineers?
purplie writes My non-technical spouse is an analyst in a small county government department, a handful of people plus some contractors for projects. Their project/task management is mouth-to-mouth, sticky notes, and emails, and it's driving them crazy. I want to suggest something like an issue tracker. It would have to work for tasks both large (year-long investigations) and small (arranging catering for a meeting). The issue trackers I'm familiar with are too software-development-oriented, or make too many assumptions about your 'agile' religion. Are there any good options for non-engineers? They use mainly Windows and have iPads. I don't like web-based tools, but that might work better for them because they don't have administrative privs on their machines. Something that also incorporates a wiki might be nice. There will be resistance if it's not really easy to use.
Redmine is pretty flexible and has worked for us across multiple disciplines.
https://asana.com/ is the most pleasant issue tracking software I've used.
Consider Trello. It's not strictly an issue tracker, but it's very good for this sort of thing and already popular outside of software circles.
I have used Trello for the coordination of issues for a large-ish project with coders, project managers, and general business people, it works well, very drag-and-drop-y, nice card metaphor.
You don't want issue tracking - you want task scheduling and task completion methodologies. The non-engineer have schedules to fulfill which are usually not associated with a deliverable but a task. If there's no deliverable, there's no bug, no feature, i.e. no ISSUE. So tracking issues loses the focus. Issues aren't always tasks in trackers and that's why those are so tied to code, since they mold issues to whatever a release date/agile software development needs.
Unlike issues, tasks always translate to effective actions to undertake someplace, sometime, with someone, for whatever reason.
Post-its are still used nowadays because they do their job representing tasks, and their physical form, order or the fact it is in the trash can imply its relevance, priority, date/time-frame and status. Tell her to keep using tools she's comfortable with, but customize a variation of KANBAN for her team's specific needs. And then maybe decide if a web platform or a physical board make more sense in her context, and the learning curve is acceptable. Post-its + a board or Trello are a good place to start.
OpenAtrium is an open-source intranet-in-a-box, its v2.0 version making use of Responsive Design to support all devices, and includes calendaring, an excellent issue tracker, RSS reader/publisher, and can be customized for all kinds of unique purposes (or not).
www.openatrium.com
It is the issue tracker used by the current White House for its issue tracking and collaboration purposes.
http://www.kavehmoravej.com/bl...
https://developmentseed.org/bl...
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
We use Jira at work, it has a nice amount of different plugins for boards. So it's not just a tracker for software. Great when used properly, but needs some training from an educated person who's done it before.
I've successfully managed to trick a bunch of psychologists into using redmine for issues management. These guys are the epitome of non-techies.
There are already a lot of suggestions for which particular package to use, so I'll contribute my thoughts.
I've used RT. It worked.
The main feature that helped me move my (financial services) office from word-of-mouth to proper tracking is that RT supported submitting issues by email. We already used internal email extensively for other workflows, so it was easy for me to convince people to send an email to <project>@tracking.<domain>, and they'd get an emailed response showing the ticket number and a link where they could follow the progress.
RT let me run different projects (which in my case usually meant only 1-3 people) separately, and each project had nice charts showing how many open issues they had to work on. Managers loved that, because they could see who was overloaded and by how much. Each user was also able to create their own dashboard to display when they logged in, so they could get a to-do list first thing in the morning.
For each project, I could modify what information was needed when a ticket was created. Almost the entire ticket form was customizable, so that was adapted to the project needs. For our financial advisors, they had simple forms with a customer name and a description field. Traders had buy and sell forms with security symbols, amounts, account numbers, et cetera.
I haven't been in a position to manage very many trackers, so maybe these features are standard-issue. Maybe something else will work for you, but like it said, RT worked for my needs.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Because his wife is involved and anything making more productive and less stressed is good for him. Plus, there the chance of more sex if that is achieved. So quit hating and help a brother get laid.
That said - most engineering organizations have documented a process and adapted one of many tools to support this process. Sounds like in this case they don't even know what the process is - heck, everyone probably does their own thing so there is likely to not even be a process.
Try this
Step 1: Determine how you want issue tracking to work
Step 2: Get everyone to follow this process without bringing in a tool, your process will change during this step
Step 3: Document the final process from Step 2
Step 4: Bring in any tool that can be lightly customized to support the documented process
Note the hopefully lightly customized part above... Yes there is probably work to do here, regardless of what tool you choose. Most likely you want to pay for the tool that will require the easiest/lightest customization - it will be cheaper than trying to get a tool for free and using a small team to massively customize it.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Happy spouse, happy house?
If they don't feel the need, then why do they do it anyway?