Hi,
anonym:
> intrigeri:
>> Given we now have "mentions" (@nickname) on our Redmine, for the
>> majority of cases, when the requested info can presumably be provided
>> cheaply and quickly, I think we should use mentions and not reassign
>> the ticket. And when I'm mentioned, if I realize that providing the
>> requested info needs will take me great amounts of work, I should
>> do whatever works for me to track this work, be it on a new ticket
>> or my personal offline organization tools.
> I quite like this feature and have set up filter rules in my email
> client for the resulting redmine notifications I receive so I don't
> miss them. However, I wonder how this works out if you don't do
> something like that. I also fear that the ad hoc tracking of
> "mentions" that you propose above is easy to forget.
I think most of us are in one of these 4 situations:
- They notice and track new incoming emails but don't pay much
attention to tickets reassigned to them on Redmine (note that
Redmine sends no notification to the new assignee).
Mentions help. Reassigning does not help (I've seen quite a few
cases recently where it appears that the new assignee had no idea
something was expected from them).
So dropping "Info Needed" is a no-op.
- They regularly look at their Redmine plate but they won't notice
incoming email Redmine sends them, unless they set up
ad-hoc filters.
Mentions don't help. Reassigning or creating a new subtasks helps.
So dropping "Info Needed" + reassignment brings a regression.
To mitigate this:
- We should strongly recommend these folks set up whatever
filters they need to notice email our Redmine is sending them.
- Creating a dedicated subtask for the info request is an option
in some cases (I'll discuss this below).
- To address the root cause of the problem and make email
a communication option that actually works, we should gently
suggest these folks to unsubscribe from sources of incoming
email that they don't read, and that swamps them in an inbox
they barely dare looking at. I guess that's part of self-care
recommendations we could promote more visibly within Tails :)
- They pay attention to their Redmine plate and to incoming email.
All's well, no change here.
- They don't pay much attention to their Redmine plate and don't
notice incoming email from Redmine.
No change here. No ticket tracking system will help. Only social
processes, such as regular team meetings, have a chance to enable
successful collaboration & communication.
> I just had a half-baked idea that might have some merit: say I work
> on ticket X and need info about "foo" from intrigeri. Then I just
> create a subticket Y of X called "Info needed: foo" and assign it to
> intri. When intri has posted the information about "foo" to X he can
> then mark Y as resolved.
That's surely a valid option in some cases, mainly: 1) when the
overhead of "just" creating a subtask is justified by the amount of
work needed to fulfil the info request; 2) for those of us who can't
afford paying attention to email Redmine sends them. I don't know how
much of our "Info Needed" usage fits into this category. I want to
keep this option in mind even though I'd rather first tackle the root
cause of the problem, because for (2) this option feels like
a workaround.
Cheers!
--
intrigeri
