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Current project is LEP/BetterBugSubscriptionsAndNotifications .

Also see UI work at yellow/Subscriptions .

Next Deliverables

Due 2011-01-28

• Gary:
  • Updated LEP, with definition of success/completion approved by Jono.
  • Iterative user testing plan, after discussion with Matthew and Jono.

  • Report on status of YUI upgrade plan from RobertCollins.

  • Report on reply from Jono/Robert on scheduling SMM or similar sooner.
• Brad and Benji:
  • Establish new testing feature flag that is granted to team:yellow
  • Replace non-js subscribe link with JS subscribe link.
  • Have the link pop up an accordion widget, on production.
  • Next task: Make the widget behave the way we want.
• Danilo and Gary:
  • Filters and subscribers should be joined: demonstrate that the current filter page is gone.
  • Show that events are now integrated as one of the filters available on structural subscriptions.
  • Next task: One person takes mail unsubscribe story with Graham; other person joins Brad and Benji on JS/Webservice work.
• Graham:
  • Make bug notification work through the API (in review)
  • Demo the widget for direct subscriptions, on production. Announce to malone-alpha team (with warning that it might or might not change significantly soon).
  • Next task: Mail unsubscribe story, with Gary and/or Danilo.

Problem Solving

2011-01-21

• Landing issues slowing us down. Solution: no short term solution identified. Ask Jono/Robert that SMM or similar be scheduled earlier.
• JS painful; example we found was bad. Solution: Ask for early review from Deryck. Rejected solution: ask Deryck for a "blessed" example.

• YUI upgrades are painful. Going from dot releases (e.g., 3.2 to 3.3) is a cost like switching major Python releases (e.g., 2.6 to 2.7). Solution: ask RobertCollins to be on top of YUI upgrades like Python upgrades, and to schedule upgrades with significant warning and full knowledge of the cost.

• How do we get ongoing stakeholder guidance in an efficient way?
  • Francis suggests that we use UI testing of the full interface as a way to also get initial stakeholder approval. He feels user testing will frame the conversation productively to encourage direction of our plans rather than bikeshedding. Benji warns that users may not understand that other features they are not tested on will not be present.
  • Benji wonders (without necessarily advocating) if Elliot might say "build it and people will like it." Gary feels we've tried that before (i.e., without sufficient stakeholder approval) and failed.
  • Benji suggests that we ought to have a single stakeholder representative. Gary feels that we've seen before that this is insufficient and historically problematic.
  • We collectively wonder what Jono's approval of the UI and the definition of "done" means in this regard. Is it Jono's responsibility to be the developers' only interface to the stakeholders now?

  • We talk about whether UI mockups or prototypes or incremental deliveries would be more valuable for getting input. UI mockups are cheaper than development, but incremental deliveries are more efficient if they are on the right track. Gary feels an ideal answer is finding a cheap way of getting just enough of a stakeholder blessing of a UI, and then using incremental deliveries to steer the rest of the way. Time-boxed mockups, developed iteratively ideally, combined with iterative delivery.

  • Next task for pursuing solution: Gary needs to contact Matthew (and Jono and/or Francis?) and see how user testing might work and what we need to provide. We do not yet have all parts of the user interface mocked up. We'd like to see if we can find an approved way to do iterative user testing--several tests instead of one big one. Can we make it cheaper/easier?

Thoughts for later discussion or action

• Our UI shows the possibility of subscribing to *no* events, statuses, and so on. That's a reasonable incremental tool (for when you want to only subscribe to a certain event, for instance), but not a good end state--it is the logical equivalent of deleting (or at least muting) a subscription. How do we handle that in the UI? [GaryPoster]

• I want to try keeping a velocity chart, as described in Manage It. The kanban's charts are not quite what I want. For each individual project (i.e., our current project), track Features Left, Features Done, and Total Features over time. I'll use a Google graph. I'm adding that to the Administrivia lane of our kanban board. [GaryPoster]

• Next feature, maybe we can try a Tuesday or Wednesday delivery date. Manage It specifically warns against the Friday delivery dates we have now because she says that it can encourage stress and work over the weekend. If that proves to be a problem, here's a solution. [GaryPoster]

• Think about sprints. [GaryPoster]

• "interactions, when dealing with the webservice, are a mess and probably need some cleaning up." [gmb]