Rulebook for Planned Work Ticket Workflow
Purpose
For Scrum and Kanban Teams: this article shows what issue types and states you can use to visualize your planed-work items.
This is not a one way workflow with just one "step by step manual", this is a rulebook that explains in which way tickets can be moved between the different states of the planned work workflow.
General Principles
To eat an elephant, one needs to cut it into bite sized pieces. This means that if we want to build something big, we need to cut down the bigger task into work items that we can incrementally work on.
We are also pledged to deliver value in smaller iterations. So our main focus when cutting down work should lie on doing it in a way that delivers a smaller but usable result each time.
To be effective in this, we thoroughly plan and prepare our work, before implementing it. Here are the Ticket types and Workflow States we us to do this. Tickets can freely flowinside the preparatory phase states. And once they have been selected, then again can freely flow between the implementation-phase states.
Issue Types
Listed in order of relevance to most readers (engineers)
Project/Change
| Type | Purpose |
|---|---|
Task |
A work package of a project |
Change |
An atomic change on an existing system |
All the above issue types use the "Planned Work" workflow.
Product
| Type | Purpose |
|---|---|
Story |
Atomic work package |
Bug |
Something out of the order has been observed and needs to be investigated/fixed. |
All the above issue types use the "Planned Work" workflow.
Maintenance
| Type | Purpose | Jira Template |
|---|---|---|
Maintenance Task |
Task |
Maintenance Procedure |
To ensure effectiveness and work quality in maintenance, please adhere to the Maintenance Procedure & Template.
The Maintenance Task uses the Simple Task workflow.
Starts at OPEN and moves to CLOSED, that’s it.
Meta Issue Types used in Customer Projects
| Type | Purpose |
|---|---|
Epic |
A collection of tickets to work towards a common goal. Epics can be used to track bigger features or projects. |
Operations |
Link to Odoo for billing purposes. |
Project |
Link to Odoo for billing purposes for projects. |
Project Milestone |
Link to Odoo for billing purposes for parts of a project. |
Preparatory Phase: New to Ready (Backlog)
NEW
Status definition
When created, the issue gets assigned this state. This state is about understanding the subject, linking them to relevant tickets (projects, epics).
Transition to NEW
When a ticket was in one team and needs to get reassigned to another team, then the ticket will automatically go back to the status NEW, to make sure it does not get lost or disrupt the workflow in the new team.
Next possible transitions:
-
REFINEMENT clarify
-
ON HOLD not now
-
BACKLOG ready
-
CLOSED deemed not relevant.
REFINEMENT
Status definition
The issue should be worked on in the foreseeable future, but the expected outcome needs to be clarified. Action required.
Clarify the following aspects:
-
The scope "what" of the ticket is defined and clear?
-
It has to be estimated how much work it is. (for example, story points)
-
Priority and budget: when do we need to do it? And does customer consent to costs?
ON HOLD
Status definition
We are confident that this is something we have to do, or we would like to do, but it is unclear when that is supposed to happen.
*Passive State –*with automated handling, to avoid permanently forgetting about it.
Rule for Transition to ON HOLD
-
Set delay time (in months)
-
Comment as to why it’s put on hold.
-
Inform customer, if related to a customer project or ticket.
Implementation Phase: Ready (Backlog) to Done
SELECTED
Status definition
SELECTED is for Kanban Teams only: backlog items that have been selected to get worked on this week.
IN PROGRESS
PENDING
Status definition
Work is in progress somewhere else inside VSHN. Used for tickets while waiting for a maintenance task to get done. Used for tickets, that have a related ticket, where work must get done shortly by a different team or person.
Passive State – with automated handling, when a ticket is untouched
Rule for Transition to PENDING
-
Define numbers of days before ticket needs attention again. (1-7)
-
If the ticket is depending on a different ticket, interlink them correctly (
causes,waits for,relates to, or by mentioning it in the comment) -
Add comment to state, what it is waiting for.
WAITING FOR MAINTENANCE
Status definition
This status is only used when a ticket needs to get worked on in maintenance and if there is a reason not to open a dedicated maintenance ticket.
Template maintenance task must be used and correctly applied.
Rule for transition to WAITING FOR MAINTENANCE:
-
Due date must be set.
-
Make sure no important and relevant information is missing for the Engineer carrying out this task.