Fine Prioritization (Scheduled Work)

We use JIRA to track work scheduled for completion. In the spirit of Agile development, most work is only scheduled a few weeks in advance and is taken from the coarse prioritization performed by CCB and maintained in Greenhopper. (Note: some features are by nature more complex and will take longer than a few weeks.)

Work is “Scheduled” by adding the Scheduled label to a ticket. The scheduled work list is kept short (2-4 weeks) to minimize task switching and ensure managing scheduled tasks is either not an issue, or can be handled via daily discussion and weekly meetings. When a task is due by a specific date, that is noted by defining the due date on the ticket. In the case of critical issues, the ticket is marked as a blocker which means “stop everything and address this”. If there are no due dates or blocker issues, order does not matter. Usually, as work is completed, the next highest priority item in Greenhopper is scheduled to be addressed.

We use the Scheduled Work Items dashboard to view all scheduled items. Below is a snapshot of the Schedule Work Items filter in JIRA.

Coarse Prioritization

The GMAT project uses JIRA filters to track work identified for the next release. Here is a snapshot of what our Priority One backlog looks like.

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