Kanban board - cleanup & protocol recommendations

[kelenelee]

5/4 update: this issue got way too unwieldy so some sections have been moved to separate issues

• Issue Templates for Figma Kit research #396
• Onboarding UX - Guerrilla usability tests #412
• Re-organize our Drive #408
• Cleanup of homepage, readme, and wiki #422
  • Wiki rewrite #406

@allthatyazz originally tasked me with reorganizing our team's Google Drive and Project Management board. Leave your feedback on the changes in the discussion

Columns

• Deleted unnecessary columns to remove horizontal scrolling
  • Deleted "New Issue Approval" column. Newly created issues awaiting review now live in Add cards (# new)
  • Deleted "Ice Box" column
  • Deleted "Questions / Review" column
    • Replaced with new orange label ?
• Cleaned up Start Here column
  • Removed onboarding-related content, because it is unlikely and ill-advised that newcomers will be beginning their Github journey via the main Kanban board
  • Add link to new issue templates
  • Apply # heading formatting to board cards
• Added emojis to column names and wrote column names in all caps, to separate visual hierarchy from bolded issue or card titles

Issues

• Closed depreciated, redundant, or junk issues
• Moved Ice Box and New Issue Approval issues to Backlog
• Moved documentation-related issues to a new project board
  • Created three new milestones for documentation tasks related to the project revival in August, the team lineup changing in January, and the PM transition in February
• Moved onboarding-related issues to a new project board. (Not sure if this is a permanent solution, as Github is a lot to take in for newcomers on top of DS domain knowledge.)
• Removed child issues from Kanban board, and kept "parent" issues. Edited parents to include issue numbers of copied issue templates, to create more contextual stories. Kanban done column went down from ~270 to ~30. Child issue assignees have been added to the parents.
  • Setting up Calendly account #164
  • Listening to the stakeholder interview #326
  • P1 analysis #341
  • Conducting interviews - Participants 1-11 #280
  • Documentation Tools Initial Research - Storybook  #44
  • Second draft of the Design System guide. #58
  • Audit of HflA Project Wikis #209
  • Create Framework for HfLA Design System Checklist #154
  • Initial Figma Audit of all HfLA teams #109

[kelenelee]

Observations

• new volunteers don't know how to use Github
• our Drive and Github (especially Github) feels "confusing" to navigate despite there being a Kanban guide
• some people tend to keep a lot of browser tabs and workarounds to bookmarking stuff
• Github issues are often not created unless specifically asked to copy an existing template
• Work takes place in Slack conversations or in a Google Doc without a ticket being created
• Slack messages are deleted after a few weeks, leading to conversations and complex thought processes being completely lost
• labels are listed in alphabetical order and emojis don't count towards sorting sadly 🧪🧬🧱
• milestones can be closed
• labels can be applied to discussions

I suspect that the confusion around Github, and reluctance to use it, might be due to:

• lack of familiarity
• a knowledge gap in what issue labels and other labels on the site mean.
• more familiar or simpler platforms such as Google Drive and Slack are simply easier for people to go with when brainstorming, problem-solving, designing, discussing, learning, or finding information.

Observation "Plan"

I can use information architecture heuristics to get things started, but observation of team members would be ideal to discover the best way to organize the Github project management board, to increase making of issues and decrease confusion.

For now, I will continue to observe volunteer behavior in meetings.

[allthatyazz]

Moving things outside of the PM Board

• move onboarding and offboarding tasks to a different project board

This would be a logical choice since onboarding/offboarding does not occur as frequently. Also if the purpose of Onboarding issues (first tickets for new joiners) is to train new joiners and make them more comfortable with the GitHub environment, we can expose the new joiners to a less crowded project board.

• move project info board to wiki page

I looked at the other HfLA projects. It seems most projects use the project info column for the main Github board.

[allthatyazz]

@kelenelee For the GitHub columns, we are required to follow the order you find here https://github.com/hackforla/.github/projects/2

[kelenelee]

@allthatyazz Hi, thanks for commenting. Feels different from talking on Slack, but this is fun to try out!

This would be a logical choice since onboarding/offboarding does not occur as frequently. Also if the purpose of Onboarding issues (first tickets for new joiners) is to train new joiners and make them more comfortable with the GitHub environment, we can expose the new joiners to a less crowded project board.

My thoughts exactly!! I can help with making it.

For the GitHub columns, we are required to follow the order you find here https://github.com/hackforla/.github/projects/2

Thank you for catching that and I'm sorry I moved things around 😅 But I think I disagree with the template. I have a hunch that this column order is contributing a bit to everyone's confusion.

Volunteers will be looking at first few columns the most. If I were to pick the columns that I reference the most, they would be Prioritized Backlog and In Progress, not Start Here and Ice Box.

I understand that the categories are in chronological order from left to right, to show how an issue moves from not a priority all the way to done. But the volunteers actually using the project board may see the layout a different way

[allthatyazz]

Let’s start making a new board for onboarding. The columns can be as simple as the templates, In progress, questions and Done. What do you think?
We have some issues related to onboarding/offboarding in the weekly operations. We can maybe move those to the new board as well?

For the GitHub columns, we are required to follow the order you find here https://github.com/hackforla/.github/projects/2

Volunteers will be looking at first few columns the most. If I were to pick the columns that I reference the most, they would be Prioritized Backlog and In Progress, not Start Here and Ice Box.

100% agree about the Ice Box. It was the most confusing for me when I joined the project.

[kelenelee]

@allthatyazz It would be amazing if Backlog and In progress could be moved further left.

I created the onboarding board. I also rewrote the wiki article. In the future I hope DS newcomers are sent there without hiccups.

I have moved the onboarding issues from Weekly Operations to the Onboarding board.

To be honest, having an issue house a template with the actual work in the comments has never made sense to me. I think templates can live in the wiki. Each time a task recurs, it should be its own issue. Then we won't need a "Weekly Operations" column, either.

We could even move agendas to Discussions.

[kelenelee]

Observation: Github columns have optional automation, for example:

• issue opened = move to "Backlog"
• issue closed = move to "Done"

If there is no automation in place for Backlog, new issues created "await triage" next to the "Filter cards" search box. @allthatyazz Therefore, we could get rid of "New Issue Approval" and "Ice Box."

[kelenelee]

As a test, I deleted some board columns.

Also, I'm wondering if epics should be separate boards. I was fiddling around in Jira and each initiative gets their own board, which seems to make a lot more sense than having all projects in one board

[allthatyazz]

I created the onboarding board. I also rewrote the wiki article. In the future, I hope DS newcomers are sent there without hiccups.

I have moved the onboarding issues from Weekly Operations to the Onboarding board.

I saw the changes. The onboarding board looks great along with the Wiki article. I found all your Wiki revisions very useful. We can expect the new joiners to have a smoother onboarding experience from now on. The next step really would be to improve the onboarding tickets themselves. Our UX writer, @sandraberjan can be a great help to improve the copy and IA further. I encourage you two to start working together.

To be honest, having an issue house a template with the actual work in the comments has never made sense to me. I think templates can live in the wiki. Each time a task recurs, it should be its own issue. Then we won't need a "Weekly Operations" column, either.

Your observation is true to some extent. In many project management instances, the comments on an issue are not any less than the main body of the issue (the very first comment). The comments are meant to show the progress in a timeline format and naturally, everybody knows that each comment is an update about "the actual work." For some recurring tasks, if we create a new issue every time, we can hardly comprehend the process and track the progress.

If our goal is to simplify the project board, we can move the templates to a separate project board. Currently, we have a project board called Guides and Templates for Design Systems. We can utilize that board to include all our templates. We can rename the columns to whatever the templates are going to be used for (e.g. Usability study templates or Interview Templates).

• Create a column for User Interviews in Templates board.
• Move the following issues you recently closed from Project managment board to the to the Templates board : Interview, Note Taking and Analysis.

We could even move agendas to Discussions.

It is not an ideal solution either. It is not common among HfLA projects to include the meeting agendas on any other board other than project management. If a PM from another project wants to add an item to our agenda ( we have instances in the past), they have to be able to find the agenda from a consistent board.

As a test, I deleted some board columns.

Thanks for taking the time to declutter the issues. I have to admit that the board looks very neat with the new changes (very user-friendly). But, I think we still need the first column to be "start here" with some basic info (like quick links, agendas ...). Probably we can get away with not having the new issue approved because all the issues that our team members create are either assigned by the PM or the leads, so they are all inherently approved. Right?

I think our project was previously using the Ice Box in the wrong way. Ice Box should be used for issues with dependencies (issues that we cannot work on them right away because they are dependent on other issues.)

Also, I'm wondering if epics should be separate boards. I was fiddling around in Jira and each initiative gets their own board, which seems to make a lot more sense than having all projects in one board.

Our project is not mature enough to have separate boards for separate epics. I looked at the previous epics for our project and most of them are not even qualified as an epic.

[kelenelee]

btw @allthatyazz just wanted to thank you for your detailed replies and guidance on this issue :)

Thanks for taking the time to declutter the issues. I have to admit that the board looks very neat with the new changes (very user-friendly). But, I think we still need the first column to be "start here" with some basic info (like quick links, agendas ...).

Currently the quick links are in the first card of backlog

Probably we can get away with not having the new issue approved because all the issues that our team members create are either assigned by the PM or the leads, so they are all inherently approved. Right?

New issues are hidden next to the "Filter cards" search bar. The hidden panel kind of functions like they're waiting for approval

Ice Box should be used for issues with dependencies (issues that we cannot work on them right away because they are dependent on other issues.)

The dependency can be shown with labels or a column

The next step really would be to improve the onboarding tickets themselves. Our UX writer, @sandraberjan can be a great help to improve the copy and IA further. I encourage you two to start working together.

Agree. Happy to work with @sandraberjan !

Your observation is true to some extent. In many project management instances, the comments on an issue are not any less than the main body of the issue (the very first comment). The comments are meant to show the progress in a timeline format and naturally, everybody knows that each comment is an update about "the actual work." For some recurring tasks, if we create a new issue every time, we can hardly comprehend the process and track the progress.

Understood

It is not an ideal solution either. It is not common among HfLA projects to include the meeting agendas on any other board other than project management. If a PM from another project wants to add an item to our agenda ( we have instances in the past), they have to be able to find the agenda from a consistent board.

I still think that Github's discussions feature may be more powerful for agendas. You can leave comments, and replies under the comments as well. You can also tag participants, and label the discussion with the same project management labels. As long as the board has a link to our agendas, other PMs will be able to find the agendas.

Our project is not mature enough to have separate boards for separate epics. I looked at the previous epics for our project and most of them are not even qualified as an epic.

Understood... I guess it doesn't make sense to me to have epics with subtasks to be an issue just like the subtasks themselves

If our goal is to simplify the project board, we can move the templates to a separate project board. Currently, we have a project board called Guides and Templates for Design Systems. We can utilize that board to include all our templates. We can rename the columns to whatever the templates are going to be used for (e.g. Usability study templates or Interview Templates).
Create a column for User Interviews in Templates board.
Move the following issues you recently closed from Project managment board to the to the Templates board : Interview, Note Taking and Analysis.

I'm not sure if a separate board is ideal... if the task has to do with the project, they should be part of the same story/epic/board. Maybe, we should have an issue with each copy to be made as a dependency / task.

I think that "Guides and Templates" board was created last year for the FF templates.

[allthatyazz]

Looking at other HfLA's projects, I found the following teams' first columns interesting:

• website team
• Home Unite US

[kelenelee]

Looking at other HfLA's projects, I found the following teams' first columns interesting

Looks like the first column is largely dependent on what filters the members frequently use

[allthatyazz]

@kelenelee Very nice job editing the first comment of this issue. Few things:

• Moving the meeting agendas outside of the main project board is out of the question. Agendas are not any less than other issues the team is working on. They are the only issues reflecting the time and energy that team members spend during the weekly meetings. If the purpose of an issue is to show the work is getting done by the volunteers, agenda issues are exactly fulfilling that purpose.
• I get why you feel Agendas do not belong to the project board because they are naturally different than other issues/ or tasks.
• The previous PM used to keep Agendas in the "in progress" column. One of my first moves as the PM was to create the weekly operations column to separate the agendas from the other in-progress tasks/issues. Now we decided to reduce the number of columns, the agendas can live under the first column (Start here).
• The naming of each Agenda should start with the name of the team. I renamed all the agendas again to add DS in front of the name. If you would like to know the reasoning please view this page to know why.

[kelenelee]

@allthatyazz I just took a look at the agenda project board and OHHH I get it now!!! Thanks so much for clarifying and helping me understand. I completely understand your points now

[allthatyazz]

I just noticed that yesterday. After my meeting with Bonnie, I did more digging in HfLA's repository to gather more information. I suspect that there is more stuff at play that we are not aware of (just yet). Also, you can read the notes from Yesterday's PM meeting.

[kelenelee]

Just read through those meeting notes. Thank you for writing them – they were also very helpful.

[allthatyazz]

@navarroliuanthony @hdchangie Hi Please feel free to provide your feedback on the research templates.

[kelenelee]

As of now, the Kanban transformation is complete. User feedback has been good so far but no observations were done. If an observational study can be done, a new issue will be created.

[kelenelee]

sooo maybe multiple projects is too out-of-sight, out-of-mind?... will need the input of others