Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#1

Post by samuel02 » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 3:23 PM UTC

I'm working on a web application that is still private alpha. Right now I use Things.app for my todos, with my app as a project tagging todos 0.1, 0.2 etc. I also have a Basecamp account for communicating with some test users, receiving some bug reports/feature requests there as well as via email. Additionally I end up using Github Issues now and then for different things.

What is your workflow? What tools and how do you combine them into the ultimate workflow for managing all tasks/feature requests/bugs coming from you/your team and from your customers?

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#2

Post by aberatiu » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 3:56 PM UTC

Atlassian's JIRA and Confluence. Nothing more to say.

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#3

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#4

Post by samuel02 » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 4:06 PM UTC

aberatiu wrote: post #2

Atlassian's JIRA and Confluence. Nothing more to say.

Will they fit smaller teams and projects as well? Also, how do you handle incoming reports/requests from clients?

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#5

Post by aberatiu » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 4:18 PM UTC

samuel02 wrote: post #4

aberatiu wrote: post #2

Atlassian's JIRA and Confluence. Nothing more to say.

Will they fit smaller teams and projects as well? Also, how do you handle incoming reports/requests from clients?

The size of the team doesn't matter. It will fit your need regardless the number of the developers. For the client interaction, you create an account for them with the right permissions and that's it. I've been working for about a year now with JIRA and Confluence and I can't belive I didn't use it before.

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#6

Post by rendezvouscp » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 5:02 PM UTC

I can’t offer a solution for the ultimate workflow, but I can make some suggestions based on what I do. I also use Things, and I have an area for the company where I put all bugs and feature requests. When a user mentions an existing bug or feature request, I can increase the count to track the popularity of an item. For each release, I create a new project and add all the to-do items that I want to complete for that release. I usually schedule items based on when I think I can have them done by, which gives me a pretty strong indicator if I start slipping my schedule.

[As for everything else, I use email for all communication and don’t use Github, so everything stays in email or Things.]

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#7

Post by yogo » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 8:25 PM UTC

PostFrenzy (http://postfrenzy.com), if you collect any of those items via email then you simply forward the email (editing the message first if necessary) to the workspace where it belongs. For a particular product you might have a workspace for features, another for bugs, and so on.

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#8

Post by samuel02 » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 8:53 PM UTC

rendezvouscp wrote: post #6

I can’t offer a solution for the ultimate workflow, but I can make some suggestions based on what I do. I also use Things, and I have an area for the company where I put all bugs and feature requests. When a user mentions an existing bug or feature request, I can increase the count to track the popularity of an item. For each release, I create a new project and add all the to-do items that I want to complete for that…

That seems like a clean setup, but it gets complicated when you want to have some transparency, e.g. show clients that you are aware of a problem and working on it, like a ticket system..

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#9

Post by samuel02 » Mon, Jun 04, 2012, 9:10 PM UTC

aberatiu wrote: post #5

samuel02 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will they fit smaller teams and projects as well? Also, how do you handle incoming reports/requests from clients?

The size of the team doesn't matter. It will fit your need regardless the number of the developers. For the client interaction, you create an account for them with the right permissions and that's it. I've been working for about a year now with JIRA and Confluence and I can't belive I didn't use it before.

I looked into the Atlassian tools but they seem too overkill for me, currently the project is still quite small and I just have a couple of clients, and only collaborating with other people occasionally.. But thanks for the tip! Will definitely look into it again when the project has grown bigger.

Re: Ask HN: What tools/workflow do you use for managing features/bugs/todos?

#10

Post by jat1 » Tue, Jun 05, 2012, 2:54 PM UTC

Not sure if I am allowed to post links but I posted a blog post on this subject recently http://www.blackspiral.co.uk/blog/ comparing Trello/Redmine/Jira. Have used all three on recent projects.

If you do check out the link, the blog isn't fully featured yet so please ignore that!