linaro-project-management team mailing list archive

[Ilias Biris <ilias.biris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks

handling technical debt is a smallish issue that we should think on how
to tackle.

The main issue I have relates to the limitations of launchpad + our
current process. Most common case for me is many small items from all
the blueprints in a release period, say 1 work item for every other
blueprint, for a total of 10 blueprints... At the same time, splitting
every one of the original blueprints just for 1-2 work items in each
one, seems an overkill and unnecessary bureaucracy.

Instead I would like to propose using a special blueprint called
"technical debt" per project, which will maintain dependency links to
all the blueprints with outstanding small work leftover. The technical
debt blueprint can move from release to release, the target is to get to
releases with 0 techn debt.

There are pros and cons
- pros: The teams do not face much bureaucracy, they do not even need to
split the original blueprints. The PM can take care of linking the
leftover blueprints to that techn debt blueprint via the dependencies.

- cons: Since the linkage is done via dependencies, the techn. debt
needs to be kept low, otherwise it will be hard to trace all the small
leftover items if they pile up. Still the PM can and should be ready to
give a complete picture on what is still owed as work.

Counter-arguments? Does anyone mind if I try this during 12.01?

Many thanks,
-- 
Ilias Biris ilias.biris@xxxxxxxxxx
Project Manager, Linaro
M: +358504839608, IRC: ibiris Skype: ilias_biris
Linaro.org│ Open source software for ARM SoCs