How to configure Kanban task flow in R&D projects

Author: Hogtooth Technical Team

In R&D projects, teams often use Kanban manage the life cycle of tasks, and the Kanban task flow of different teams is different. Through practice, we have collected the needs of different teams for Kanban management:

• The project manager expects to know the overall work situation of the team, and expects to customize a set of task processes in line with the team;
• The development team pays attention to each person’s task progress and development volume, and manages code quality simultaneously;
• After the testing team submits the defect for the tested function, how is the defect repaired?
• The product team sorted out the requirements, and received feedback on the status of each stage of the requirements.

In response to the needs of each team, Choerodon's Kanban management introduced "State Machine" function , used to formulate different task flow workflows, corresponding to the columns in the Kanban, and for each state in the Kanban Defines the corresponding workflow and specific operations to be performed when dealing with problems. Help everyone focus on the R&D process and improve R&D efficiency.

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C7N "state machine" usage scenario

The following figure shows the general R&D process of a R&D project, including the flow of requirements in each stage of the project, and the entire cycle management of code development.

Demand management is an important process in R&D project activities. It can be said that demand is the beginning of product development and runs through the entire product life cycle, from the initial demand collection to demand design, development, testing, and final launch, no matter which link All depend on demand.

After the requirements review is passed, the project enters the development side. At this time, the development team needs to formulate a clear iteration plan, including the priority of the product backlog (product backlog, that is, the requirements that have passed the review), the purpose of the iteration, etc., and then enter development stage.

After the developer determines the task, he creates the corresponding development branch. After the development is completed, the developer conducts a local self-test, then merges into the main branch of the development environment test, and arranges the tester to perform the development environment test. After passing the acceptance test, the system is released and online.

01

Custom task process

Taking this set of processes as an example, how to use the state machine to configure the task flow in Choerodon?

Configure the status and circulation in the

Choerodon Kanban management fits the entire process configuration of the project from demand management to development, testing, and launch. According to the example of the entire process system R & D projects, we first need to make sure Kanban explicit iterative three stages : design, development, testing.

The three stages correspond to the following state nodes:
design : functional design, technical design, design review, design completion;
development: to be developed, under development, local self-test, development completed;
test: to be tested, staging test, acceptance test, completed.

The focused content at different stages can be aggregated into different Kanban boards. As follows, we can build design kanban, development kanban, and test kanban .

The connection between the design kanban and the development kanban depends on: design completion in the design phase = pending development in the development phase;
The connection between the development Kanban and the test Kanban depends on: the completed state of the development phase is the initial state of the test phase.

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Of course, if you need to view the Kanban in a global dimension, we can also build a global Kanban.

According to the prepared kanban, column and status, and scenario, the circulation direction of the configuration status can control the circulation of cards in the kanban.
Taking the issue type of <Story> as an example, the circulation process is as follows:

After the status of the status is configured, when the task is dragged in the Kanban, the task will flow according to the process.

Configuration problem type

In addition, there are often many different types of requirements on the project, and there are different processing procedures for different requirements. E.g:

Different needs also require different types of issues to sort out. Choerodon uses different types of issue process management capabilities to help the project achieve diversified, multi-scenario process management capabilities. For detailed configuration information, please refer to the User Manual "How to Configure Question Types"

02

issue linkage with branch

After the development team entered the development stage, a life course of code branching was produced. That is: after the task is determined, the corresponding development branch is created. After the development is completed, the developers self-test locally, then merge into the main branch of the development environment test, and arrange the testers to perform the development environment test. From this process, the following linkages related to issue are extracted:

1. After the developer's local development branch feature is merged into the test environment, the development is completed;
2. The development is completed and the tester is notified to test.

For example: According to the appeal requirements, the configuration is as follows:

Choerodon supports the linkage of issue and development branch to provide better support for the team's DevOps practice.

03

Story and subtask linkage circulation

In the process of project iteration, developers focus on the development of the sub-tasks they are responsible for. The neglected management and circulation of user story dimensions will cause the sub-tasks to have been completed, but the user stories are still backlogged in a certain state and cannot enter the testing process in time. This will cause these user stories to not be fully tested, which will ultimately affect the quality of product delivery. The state machine function of Choerodon hogtooth supports parent-child tasks for state linkage without manual maintenance.

For example: After all the development subtasks are completed, the user story will automatically flow to the development completed state.

04

/Enterprise WeChat Push Message

In order to facilitate project members to receive timely notifications of task processing, in addition to emails and internal letters, Choerodon supports Webhook message pushes on other platforms such as Dingding and WeChat. The project leader can enable Webhook notifications at the status nodes that need to receive notifications in time, and receive real-time push notifications of task status flows.

For example: set to send [email, station letter] notifications to [reporter, handler], and start Webhook notifications.

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To learn how to add a webhook, please refer to the user manual "How to configure a webhook"

05

not just a research and development project

Of course, in addition to research and development projects, there will also be task management processes that match the current situation in sales projects, human resources, marketing, operations and other projects. Here we take a sales management project as an example 🌰.

Different sales operations correspond to different sales processes, and the sales director defines the sales process according to the needs of the team. The common sales process is as follows:

🔹Potential Business Opportunities--> Contact--> Business Contact--> Order Order--> Sign Contract🔹

The state machine configuration is as follows:

Kanban management is as follows:

It runs through the entire life cycle of the product, including the demand collection, demand review, analysis, disassembly and development progress follow-up of the project's internal and external users.

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"state machine" 1615a7c4f692d3

For a more detailed operation tutorial, please refer to the user manual:

How to configure the question type: ">https://open.hand-china.com/document-center/doc/product/10177/10419?doc_code=119749&doc_id=124572

How to configure Kanban: ">https://open.hand-china.com/document-center/doc/product/10177/10419?doc_code=119277&doc_id=124581#5.%20Webhook%E9%85%8D%E7 %BD%AE

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This article was originally created by the Toothfish technical team, please indicate the source for reprinting: official website