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Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy...

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:01 am
by visentin
Reading how the different threads concerning bugs, ideas, evolutions and all matters of SP develop chaotically, this weird idea came to my mind...
Having worked in few IT companies and seen how they work, I'm more and more aware of the similarity of SP with any IT product, apart from the fact SP is non-profit.
There should be a system that should allow:
- Post ideas individually. Duplicates not allowed
- Leave ideas during an incubation stage during which people could comment, vote, etc etc
- After the incubation stage is over, and depending on the result, successful or not, the developer's board validate it or not.
- The developers estimate it: is it a lot of work ? Is it worth doing it ? Depending on the ratio between the cost in time and the greatness of the idea, it is placed in the task list with a defined degree of priority.
- Bugs can be posted identically as ideas in a bugs category, without the incubation stage. The board decides if it is a bug or not. Depending on the workload the priority is given.
- When a task is about to start it is allocated to someone. Ex: design to Josh, votes algorithms to MrChad (he isn't a developer but he can for example find some new formula on the paper...), code development to Matt Montana, MVS or any other if there are (ok, I know so far there is only Matt... but who knows in the future...)

In my opinion too many interesting ideas are posted and ignored during the hubbub of current thread discussions, important topics are discussed too chaotically. This would n my opinion give a new impulse to SP, and make SP3 a collaborative site in all senses of the term: constantly improving, basing on the ideas of its own members, and not stagnating during a decade like SP2 did.
How to realize this now ? We would need to find some web-based bug-tracking application free of license. Some of them are not free, but perhaps affordable for SP. I have Jira in my mind, but I'm sure there are many others... Then we would need to append it to the site, like the forum.

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:22 pm
by visentin
Matt, you're as fast as a lightning ! I'm impressed.
Only minus : MBPost link is gone. Well... lately no one connects anymore to MBPost, that's very sad. It is interesting though, if anyone miss the old look of SP, just have a visit in MBPost :D

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:38 pm
by Josh Lewis
What was that visentin? You say you want the styling on MbPost too. :wink:

The uservoice has actually been on my mind for a while. I didn't suggest it because I knew Matt had a lot on his plate before we were on SP V3. I've been using uservoice for a few years now. It's a great tool for consolidating ideas. I don't think it would hurt to have a link to it from the site feedback forum description so that it gets more notice.

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 10:01 pm
by Redwic
I was not aware of UserVoice. I will have to check it out. Thanks!

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 10:13 pm
by visentin
Yes, indeed, we must think about keeping the site feedback or not. Uservoice is just born, let's see how it goes.
Maybe it's not totally useless. While Uservoice is great for submitting concrete things, Site feedback could be used for more philosophic discussions. Perhaps we should close the thread "Report Bugs Here", and add in the forum index a small text telling to use Uservoice (just like "Use Plans & Partners" for the geographical regions)
Ah, and site feedback is still useful to tell about the spammers...

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 11:12 pm
by Josh Lewis
I was in no way trying to say that the site feedback forum was not needed. What I was proposing was that site ideas and features be shifted to the uservoice section. This way the best ideas (in theory) get the most votes and get included in SP first. Uservoice allows priority and in a sense organized the ideas. Bugs should still be reported here on SP. Right now I'm trying to consolidate the issues in a custom object so that it is easier for us to keep track of.

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 1:52 am
by mrchad9
I would be disappointed if votes determined the best ideas and which would be implemented.

There are 1000s of users on SP. Only a small fraction would look at a tool like this, and there is also all the non-member traffic to consider who wouldn't participate. Similarly I don't think the few of us who post in the forums should necessarily rule over the major contributors who don't.

Also, and more importantly, when prioritizing items the effort level required should be strongly considered, equally as much as the benefit an item may provide. It would be impossible to tell how much each voter evaluated the relative effort before ranking items, and Matt's time is limited.

I think the tool is great, btw, but it should be just one of several datapoints and considerations.

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:03 am
by Josh Lewis
Noticed I said "in theory". :wink: Obviously if everyone votes for a hot pink background, Matt probably won't add it. 8)

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:02 am
by visentin
Montana Matt wrote:Uservoice is NOT for submitting bugs. Do that on the forums here. Submit and vote for ideas on uservoice so that you have your say in what happens next to SP.

OK, this is clear now...
However the forum title should include perhaps a link to uservoice.

Montana Matt wrote:
mrchad9 wrote:I would be disappointed if votes determined the best ideas and which would be implemented. I think the tool is great, btw, but it should be just one of several datapoints and considerations.

Agreed. It's good to get an idea of what is most desired by the SP membership, I think. But it doesn't necessarily control what is going to happen next. Once we have an idea of what is most desired, we can make decisions based on that data, along with other data (such as time to complete the task, reward vs. time spent, etc.).
No one ever said that whatever gets voted highest is going to get implemented next :)
I think that's why there are different tags that can be assigned to ideas, such as "Under Review", "Planned", or "Started".


There is something important beyond the amount of votes that certainly determines what's next for Matt: the complexity of requested improvements :D

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 12:59 pm
by visentin
basing on your email address they get in touch with the Polish police and they come to your home :D

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 2:54 pm
by Fred Spicker
Why the hell should I have to set up another account at something called gravatar in order to have input at SP? What a bunch of shit.

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:14 pm
by mrchad9
I think it will work if you give a fake email account. You just won't be able to get updates on changes to your suggestion.

If worried about it, give them a different email.

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:14 pm
by Josh Lewis
Gravatar is for the avatar image. I personally have one, but it's certainly not needed. :wink:

Re: Application lifecycle management for SP ? Let's be crazy

PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:24 pm
by visentin
Montana Matt wrote:Why all the fuss about providing an email address to vote? If you don't want to do it, you don't have to.


Matt, you have my total support. There is always hundred times more people to spit on everything than people who set things up.