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Task Lifecycle Management
Updated 1,619 Days AgoPublic

The number of MITK tasks is increasing over time for various reasons. For example, we are not able to start a task because of missing information or feedback, task authors may lose interest in a topic but do not close associated tasks, or there are more new tasks over a period of time than we can process in that same period of time. The latter reason can be rather frustrating for users and developers, as there is probably a good reason for a task but it basically drowns in noise while other tasks may have precedence.

We introduced a simple life cycle management process as a countermeasure:

  • We created the tags Missing Info and Cleared to help us identifying blocked tasks and tasks ready to work on right away in particular on workboards for upcoming releases.

These tasks will be bulk edited with a comment explaining the situation (see below), tagged with Auto-closed and closed as Wontfix.

We are aware that this strategy will close some valid tasks but task authors and subscribers are encouraged to re-open tasks. In fact, we figured out in early experiments that it is an effective trigger to revive zombie tasks that are still relevant.


WARNING: Whoever is doing the auto-close bulk edit, make sure to add an "Assign to <empty>" action as last action. Otherwise, every single closed task (and hence probably most revived tasks) will be assigned to you by default. 😱
Auto-close comment template
Hi there! 🙂 

This task was auto-closed according to our {icon arrow-right} [[/w/mitk/dev/task-lifecycle|Task Lifecycle Management]].
Please follow this link for more information and don't forget that you are encouraged to reasonable re-open tasks to revive them. 🚑 

Best wishes,
The MITK devs
Last Author
kislinsk
Last Edited
May 26 2020, 12:38 PM