Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Establish Issue Naming Standards
Issues should be named in a uniform way. It simply makes it easier to read and process
many issues if they are all phrased clearly. Bugs should be phrased in terms of what is
wrong. If some are phrased in terms of what is wrong and others are phrased in terms
of how the feature should work, it can be quite confusing when a title is ambiguous. If
someone reports that “The help button links to a page about the project,” for example, it is
unclear if this statement describes a bug that needs to be fixed (it should link to the help
page) or explains how the system should work (in which case the bug could be closed and
marked “seems to already work as requested”).
Feature requests should be described from the perspective ofthe person whodesires the
new capability. In Agile methodology, the recommended template is “As a [type of user], I
want[somegoal]sothat[somereason].”Forexample,arequestmightbestatedasfollows:
“As an SRE, I want a new machine type 'ARM64' to be supported by the configuration
management system so that we can manage our new tablet-based Hadoop cluster” or “As a
user, I want to be able to clone a virtual machine via an API call so that I can create clones
programatically.”
Choose Appropriate Issue Tracking Software
SoftwareissuetrackingsystemsaresimilartoIThelpdeskticketsystems.Atthesametime,
they are different enough that you will need different software for the two functions. Issue
tracking systems focus on the bug or feature request, whereas IT helpdesk ticket systems
focus on the user. For example, in an issue tracking system, if two different people report
the same bug, they are merged or the second one is closed as a duplicate. Every issue ex-
istsonlyonce.Incontrast,anIThelpdeskticketsystemisamechanismforcommunicating
withusersandhelpingthemwithproblemsorfulfillingrequests.Iftwopeoplesubmitsim-
ilar requests, they would not be merged as each is as unique as the person who made the
request.
Software issue tracking systems and IT helpdesk ticket systems also have different
workflows. An issue tracking system should have a workflow that reflects the software de-
velopment process: bugs are received, verified, and fixed; a different person verifies they
are fixed; and then the issue is closed. This involves many handoffs. The statistics one
needs to be able to generate include how much time is spent in each step of the process.
The workflow for an IT helpdesk is more about the back-and-forth communication with a
person.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search