Development Prioritization Sub-Team

The Development Prioritization subteam is comprised of members from both the ArchivesSpace User Advisory and Technical Advisory Councils. This subteam was created in January 2016 following a decision to split the former Features Prioritization and Testing team into two separate groups.  In collaboration with the ArchivesSpace Program Team, the subteam prioritizes feature requests and bug reports for developers working on future releases of the ArchivesSpace program and occasionally may make recommendations on creating Task Forces to holistically address specific areas of the program for improvement.

The prioritization process:

The lead reviews Bug and Feature Request Jira tickets and assign tickets to subteam members to investigate and discuss at the subteam meetings.  Each meeting tries to address a mixture of Bug and Feature requests, from both the “Awaiting Prioritization” and “Awaiting More Information” queues. In preparation for the meeting, subteam members:

• Verify whether the issue still relevant and whether it should be addressed locally or within the actual program
• Comment on the ticket/share it with the ArchivesSpace member listserv to gather additional clarification/community input when needed
• Confirm or reevaluate the priority ranking of the ticket (in order from least to greatest - these descriptions are suggestions for applying more consistency with the priority rankings):
  
  • Trivial: a really small improvement for a specialized area of the program with limited impact and little time-constraint
  • Minor: an improvement for an area of the program with little time-constraint
  • Major: a large improvement for the program with some time constraint
  • Critical: the program currently is not working and impacts users in regular use 
  • Blocker: the program currently not working, dramatically impacts users in all use, and must be addressed immediately.
• Confirm or suggest tags for the tickets (this helps with grouping related tickets for development projects)
• Document their routing recommendation (“Awaiting More Information,” “Ready for Implementation,” "Ready for Community Developer," or “Closed” if the ticket is declined) in the monthly meeting agenda

During the Dev. Pri. meetings, the subteam discusses the tickets and their recommendations and route them to their next status. The subteam member assigned to the ticket will follow up on the ticket with explanatory comments on the decision and the subteam lead updates the ticket status.

Factors influencing the prioritization include

• Demonstrated community interest in the issue by supporting votes and comments on the tickets and/or discussion on the member listserv and Google Group
• Sufficient specification (see the How to Request a new Feature/How to Report a Bug documentation)
• Developer capacity and expertise
• Priorities outlined in the Development Roadmap

Average Workload:

The ensure that Dev. Pri. discusses enough tickets and has time for discussion, the monthly meetings are 1.5 hours long.  

The average time commitment for subteam members is approximately 2.5 hours per month (including the monthly meeting time).  Each person is usually assigned 3 tickets to investigate for each meeting.

The average time commitment for the subteam lead is approximately 3.5 hours per month (including the monthly meeting time).  The lead selects and assigns the tickets, facilitates the meetings, routes the tickets on the kanban boards, and prepares quarterly reports to the UAC or TAC chair as requested.