[teampractices] Phabricator terminology change (blocking->subtasks)

Discussion:

Kevin Smith

2016-07-01 16:56:01 UTC

This week, phabricator changed the terminology it uses for managing
dependencies between tasks. What has been called "Blocking"/"Blocked by" is
now called "Parent"/"Subtask". Ignoring phab terminology for a minute, here
are the two basic cases these terms are covering:

1. *Sequential dependencies.* For example, if "Implement feature X" needed
to be complete before "Document feature X", then the implementation task
would Block the document task, and the document task would be blocked by
the implement task.

2. *Composition relationships/task breakdown.* For example, if "deploy
feature X" consisted of "implement feature X" and "document feature X",
then the deploy task might be a parent, while the implement and document
tasks would be subtasks.

Until recently, phab has used the blocking/blocked by term to cover both
cases. A parent task would be blocked by its subtasks. There was a command
to create a subtask, which would create the appropriate blocking
relationships.

Now, phab uses the parent/subtask terminology to cover both cases. In the
sequential tasks case, the endpoint would be considered the parent, so in
the example above, "document" would be the parent, and "implement" would be
its subtask. Note that a task may have multiple "parents".

A nice feature they added is the ability to manage the parent/subtask
relationship from either end. While editing a task, you can change its
subtasks or its parents. Previously, you could only edit one direction.

I created T139181 as a task to update our wiki phab documentation.

Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation

Joel Aufrecht

2016-07-01 17:25:41 UTC

Permalink

Should we make (or find and join) a request that they provide a way to
differentiate between the two cases? Possible uses:

different display in the UI
use in data analysis, e.g., summing up tasks by summing up their subtasks
(and not dependencies)

*-- Joel Aufrecht*
Team Practices Group
Wikimedia Foundation

Post by Kevin Smith
This week, phabricator changed the terminology it uses for managing
dependencies between tasks. What has been called "Blocking"/"Blocked by" is
now called "Parent"/"Subtask". Ignoring phab terminology for a minute, here
1. *Sequential dependencies.* For example, if "Implement feature X"
needed to be complete before "Document feature X", then the implementation
task would Block the document task, and the document task would be blocked
by the implement task.
2. *Composition relationships/task breakdown.* For example, if "deploy
feature X" consisted of "implement feature X" and "document feature X",
then the deploy task might be a parent, while the implement and document
tasks would be subtasks.
Until recently, phab has used the blocking/blocked by term to cover both
cases. A parent task would be blocked by its subtasks. There was a command
to create a subtask, which would create the appropriate blocking
relationships.
Now, phab uses the parent/subtask terminology to cover both cases. In the
sequential tasks case, the endpoint would be considered the parent, so in
the example above, "document" would be the parent, and "implement" would be
its subtask. Note that a task may have multiple "parents".
A nice feature they added is the ability to manage the parent/subtask
relationship from either end. While editing a task, you can change its
subtasks or its parents. Previously, you could only edit one direction.
I created T139181 as a task to update our wiki phab documentation.
Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

Max Binder

2016-07-01 17:39:01 UTC

Permalink

I know my teams would love to distinguish between subtasks (of tasks with
story points) and children (of epics). I don't think that is possible right
now, so they often use the title prefix "[Subtask]".

Post by Joel Aufrecht
Should we make (or find and join) a request that they provide a way to
different display in the UI
use in data analysis, e.g., summing up tasks by summing up their subtasks
(and not dependencies)
*-- Joel Aufrecht*
Team Practices Group
Wikimedia Foundation

_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

Joel Aufrecht

2016-07-01 17:40:30 UTC

Permalink

aren't those both parent/child relationships? What's the difference?

*-- Joel Aufrecht*
Team Practices Group
Wikimedia Foundation

Post by Max Binder
I know my teams would love to distinguish between subtasks (of tasks with
story points) and children (of epics). I don't think that is possible right
now, so they often use the title prefix "[Subtask]".

Post by Kevin Smith
This week, phabricator changed the terminology it uses for managing
dependencies between tasks. What has been called "Blocking"/"Blocked by" is
now called "Parent"/"Subtask". Ignoring phab terminology for a minute, here
1. *Sequential dependencies.* For example, if "Implement feature X"
needed to be complete before "Document feature X", then the implementation
task would Block the document task, and the document task would be blocked
by the implement task.
2. *Composition relationships/task breakdown.* For example, if "deploy
feature X" consisted of "implement feature X" and "document feature X",
then the deploy task might be a parent, while the implement and document
tasks would be subtasks.
Until recently, phab has used the blocking/blocked by term to cover both
cases. A parent task would be blocked by its subtasks. There was a command
to create a subtask, which would create the appropriate blocking
relationships.
Now, phab uses the parent/subtask terminology to cover both cases. In
the sequential tasks case, the endpoint would be considered the parent, so
in the example above, "document" would be the parent, and "implement" would
be its subtask. Note that a task may have multiple "parents".
A nice feature they added is the ability to manage the parent/subtask
relationship from either end. While editing a task, you can change its
subtasks or its parents. Previously, you could only edit one direction.
I created T139181 as a task to update our wiki phab documentation.
Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

Max Binder

2016-07-01 18:27:47 UTC

Permalink

Technically, yes.

This distinguishes tasks that are subtasks of already-estimated (story
pointed) tasks, so to avoid double estimation. JIRA, for example, has
blocking tasks and subtasks, presumably for this purpose.

Post by Joel Aufrecht
aren't those both parent/child relationships? What's the difference?
*-- Joel Aufrecht*
Team Practices Group
Wikimedia Foundation

Post by Joel Aufrecht
Should we make (or find and join) a request that they provide a way to
different display in the UI
use in data analysis, e.g., summing up tasks by summing up their
subtasks (and not dependencies)
*-- Joel Aufrecht*
Team Practices Group
Wikimedia Foundation

Post by Kevin Smith
This week, phabricator changed the terminology it uses for managing
dependencies between tasks. What has been called "Blocking"/"Blocked by" is
now called "Parent"/"Subtask". Ignoring phab terminology for a minute, here
1. *Sequential dependencies.* For example, if "Implement feature X"
needed to be complete before "Document feature X", then the implementation
task would Block the document task, and the document task would be blocked
by the implement task.
2. *Composition relationships/task breakdown.* For example, if "deploy
feature X" consisted of "implement feature X" and "document feature X",
then the deploy task might be a parent, while the implement and document
tasks would be subtasks.
Until recently, phab has used the blocking/blocked by term to cover
both cases. A parent task would be blocked by its subtasks. There was a
command to create a subtask, which would create the appropriate blocking
relationships.
Now, phab uses the parent/subtask terminology to cover both cases. In
the sequential tasks case, the endpoint would be considered the parent, so
in the example above, "document" would be the parent, and "implement" would
be its subtask. Note that a task may have multiple "parents".
A nice feature they added is the ability to manage the parent/subtask
relationship from either end. While editing a task, you can change its
subtasks or its parents. Previously, you could only edit one direction.
I created T139181 as a task to update our wiki phab documentation.
Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

Kevin Smith

2016-07-01 18:32:14 UTC

Permalink

(Mostly) Max: Jira only allowed 3 levels of tasks, which was frustrating.
If phab adds "types" of subtasks, I hope it doesn't fall into that same
trap.

(Mostly) Joel: Yes, I would definitely favor distinguishing between
blocking tasks and subtasks. Trying to cover both cases with one set of
terms is very awkward, as one of my examples demonstrated: "implement X"
certainly doesn't feel like a subtask of "document X", but that's how it
will appear in phab right now.

Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation

Post by Max Binder
Technically, yes.
This distinguishes tasks that are subtasks of already-estimated (story
pointed) tasks, so to avoid double estimation. JIRA, for example, has
blocking tasks and subtasks, presumably for this purpose.

Post by Joel Aufrecht
aren't those both parent/child relationships? What's the difference?
*-- Joel Aufrecht*
Team Practices Group
Wikimedia Foundation

Post by Max Binder
I know my teams would love to distinguish between subtasks (of tasks
with story points) and children (of epics). I don't think that is possible
right now, so they often use the title prefix "[Subtask]".

Post by Joel Aufrecht
Should we make (or find and join) a request that they provide a way to
different display in the UI
use in data analysis, e.g., summing up tasks by summing up their
subtasks (and not dependencies)
*-- Joel Aufrecht*
Team Practices Group
Wikimedia Foundation

Post by Kevin Smith
This week, phabricator changed the terminology it uses for managing
dependencies between tasks. What has been called "Blocking"/"Blocked by" is
now called "Parent"/"Subtask". Ignoring phab terminology for a minute, here
1. *Sequential dependencies.* For example, if "Implement feature X"
needed to be complete before "Document feature X", then the implementation
task would Block the document task, and the document task would be blocked
by the implement task.
2. *Composition relationships/task breakdown.* For example, if
"deploy feature X" consisted of "implement feature X" and "document feature
X", then the deploy task might be a parent, while the implement and
document tasks would be subtasks.
Until recently, phab has used the blocking/blocked by term to cover
both cases. A parent task would be blocked by its subtasks. There was a
command to create a subtask, which would create the appropriate blocking
relationships.
Now, phab uses the parent/subtask terminology to cover both cases. In
the sequential tasks case, the endpoint would be considered the parent, so
in the example above, "document" would be the parent, and "implement" would
be its subtask. Note that a task may have multiple "parents".
A nice feature they added is the ability to manage the parent/subtask
relationship from either end. While editing a task, you can change its
subtasks or its parents. Previously, you could only edit one direction.
I created T139181 as a task to update our wiki phab documentation.
Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

Greg Grossmeier

2016-07-01 20:55:15 UTC

Permalink

Just so everyone doesn't think this is "done" per se (parts of it are),
work is still on-going upstream in https://secure.phabricator.com/T4788

See, for instance, the work on creating the task dependency tree. It's
already gone through a few iterations today and will probably change
more.

Greg

<quote name="Kevin Smith" date="2016-07-01" time="09:56:01 -0700">

Post by Kevin Smith
This week, phabricator changed the terminology it uses for managing
dependencies between tasks. What has been called "Blocking"/"Blocked by" is
now called "Parent"/"Subtask". Ignoring phab terminology for a minute, here
1. *Sequential dependencies.* For example, if "Implement feature X" needed
to be complete before "Document feature X", then the implementation task
would Block the document task, and the document task would be blocked by
the implement task.
2. *Composition relationships/task breakdown.* For example, if "deploy
feature X" consisted of "implement feature X" and "document feature X",
then the deploy task might be a parent, while the implement and document
tasks would be subtasks.
Until recently, phab has used the blocking/blocked by term to cover both
cases. A parent task would be blocked by its subtasks. There was a command
to create a subtask, which would create the appropriate blocking
relationships.
Now, phab uses the parent/subtask terminology to cover both cases. In the
sequential tasks case, the endpoint would be considered the parent, so in
the example above, "document" would be the parent, and "implement" would be
its subtask. Note that a task may have multiple "parents".
A nice feature they added is the ability to manage the parent/subtask
relationship from either end. While editing a task, you can change its
subtasks or its parents. Previously, you could only edit one direction.
I created T139181 as a task to update our wiki phab documentation.
Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
teampractices mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices

--
| Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E |
| identi.ca: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |