Ask HN: How do you track issues, todos, features?
77 comments
At my company, over the last 6 months we've tried Trello, Pivotal, and Sprintly. At past companies I've used Trac, Jira, and Asana. And for the last 7 years I've kept a daily todo.txt, where I append today's date and the 1-2 things I want to try to get done, adding detail as I figure out plans. (This is the only task tracking tool I've recommended that coworkers adopt and are actually using years later)
I've come to conclude that no tool for this will ever satisfy everybody's needs perfectly. Part of that is that everyone has different priorities for their task tracking tool. And frankly, some of those priorities are directly contradictory. What's trackable and detailed to a project manager who lives in the task tracker is heavyweight and clunky to an engineer who sees it as a bookkeeping annoyance. My personal todo.txt is exactly me-focused and only changes when I want it to, but it scales to exactly one engineer.
I think you just have to pick something and use it. Changing tools just adds friction and costs you familiarity. Ideally, the people who have to interact with it the most choose the best tool for them.
I've come to conclude that no tool for this will ever satisfy everybody's needs perfectly. Part of that is that everyone has different priorities for their task tracking tool. And frankly, some of those priorities are directly contradictory. What's trackable and detailed to a project manager who lives in the task tracker is heavyweight and clunky to an engineer who sees it as a bookkeeping annoyance. My personal todo.txt is exactly me-focused and only changes when I want it to, but it scales to exactly one engineer.
I think you just have to pick something and use it. Changing tools just adds friction and costs you familiarity. Ideally, the people who have to interact with it the most choose the best tool for them.
Same here, I have to track at a personal level, I'll update the Jira etc... But I still have to track it. I've tried Task Coal, org mode, Remember the Milk, etc... But at the end of the day I always go back to a Simple text file.
For family stuff (eg: shits that has to be done before we go on holidays) we've been using Google doc which allows concurrent access all sort of devices.
I don't use Google doc for my personal list because I'm still more efficient at whacking text in vim. I need evil mode for Google doc :-)
For family stuff (eg: shits that has to be done before we go on holidays) we've been using Google doc which allows concurrent access all sort of devices.
I don't use Google doc for my personal list because I'm still more efficient at whacking text in vim. I need evil mode for Google doc :-)
Actually thinking about it, a google doc with my todo list has been about the most efficient tool I have used for task management.
Not just TODO lists:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10610840
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10610840
Hi aturek, you should checkout our startup Devarist https://devarist.com
This used to be our workflow too and we built Devarist for exactly this purpose.
This used to be our workflow too and we built Devarist for exactly this purpose.
I wanted to see what you've built, but I'm not going to sign in to do it. You should have a demo.
I keep trying out new tools and always go back to txt files and a notepad with a daily list of things todo and weekly things.
I would recommend Jira - get the GreenHopper plugin to make it less "old-fashioned", but it's the right tool for the job. You can customize it if you want to go down that rabbit hole, but the built-in workflows should get you started. Projects, epics and tags should solve the problem of finding issues. Set each client as a project, or more likely as an epic so you can have one view for your developers / designers that splits by client.
Currently using Pivotal Tracker after coming from a Jira shop, and it's awful. Others seem to like it, but it's too simplistic for my taste. Even something as simple as "A blocks B" isn't possible, and seems to be by design.
Currently using Pivotal Tracker after coming from a Jira shop, and it's awful. Others seem to like it, but it's too simplistic for my taste. Even something as simple as "A blocks B" isn't possible, and seems to be by design.
Pivotal Tracker is great for what it's intended for, but it's a very opinionated tool. It's not a good repository for storing a large number of bugs or features, and as such doesn't have fancy features like "X blocks Y".
If you have an external system for your features (we just use a google docs roadmap) and immediately triage bugs (will fix next sprint, or won't fix), it works great. Lots of discipline required, though, and it takes some understanding of their specific approach before things start to make sense.
If you have an external system for your features (we just use a google docs roadmap) and immediately triage bugs (will fix next sprint, or won't fix), it works great. Lots of discipline required, though, and it takes some understanding of their specific approach before things start to make sense.
Jira with Bitbucket Server works for us pretty well. You just have to resist the urge to customize too much and stick to the basics instead.
BTW you don't need Greenhopper anymore. Jira Agile is now integrated into Jira software
Since October, JIRA+GreenHopper = JIRA Software.
We're using Asana at the moment. It's decent, but flawed, so I'm not happy. We've been through Pivotal, Lighthouse and Trello, and one team is still using JIRA.
That said, our use case is explicitly tracking backlog — work that needs to get done. My philosophy is that any issue tracker that is treated as a database and that disassociates items from assignments will decay into a pile of rot almost immediately. Especially bugs. Don't put anything into the database that does not represent work to be done within the next few days.
So we use Asana as a collaboration tool that brings together stakeholders, information and assets. Typical workflow: Account manager brings issue to attention of project manager, who brings it to attention of developer, who does the work, sends it back so customer can be notified. Task goes away. Another typical workflow is an actual project, with steps to complete and a launch timeline.
The only way, in my experience, to manage bugs is to give them to a project manager. The PM triages: Forget or hide the unimportant ones away in a drawer, and fix the important ones ASAP. Bugs that linger aren't important enough to consider. Sometimes everyone is too busy and the bugs are important but not critical; schedule a single day of the week when everyone puts aside their main work and plow through the bug backlog. We call them "bug days".
For new features, use something else, like Google Docs. But it will rot, too. It's better to do whiteboard sessions that are turn into discrete tasks and discrete projects.
That said, our use case is explicitly tracking backlog — work that needs to get done. My philosophy is that any issue tracker that is treated as a database and that disassociates items from assignments will decay into a pile of rot almost immediately. Especially bugs. Don't put anything into the database that does not represent work to be done within the next few days.
So we use Asana as a collaboration tool that brings together stakeholders, information and assets. Typical workflow: Account manager brings issue to attention of project manager, who brings it to attention of developer, who does the work, sends it back so customer can be notified. Task goes away. Another typical workflow is an actual project, with steps to complete and a launch timeline.
The only way, in my experience, to manage bugs is to give them to a project manager. The PM triages: Forget or hide the unimportant ones away in a drawer, and fix the important ones ASAP. Bugs that linger aren't important enough to consider. Sometimes everyone is too busy and the bugs are important but not critical; schedule a single day of the week when everyone puts aside their main work and plow through the bug backlog. We call them "bug days".
For new features, use something else, like Google Docs. But it will rot, too. It's better to do whiteboard sessions that are turn into discrete tasks and discrete projects.
Can I ask what you dislike about Asana?
I haven't used it. What's the biggest feature of Asana, and how is it flawed?
I haven't used it. What's the biggest feature of Asana, and how is it flawed?
Oh, where to start!
So Asana is a todo list. Everything is a task. Tasks are assigned. Tasks can have subtasks. They can also have comments, tags and attachments. The top-level organizing construct is the project; projects have tasks and also team members. Oh, and within a project, tasks have order (something which doesn't really work in practice).
So far so good. Most of the problem with Asana is in the UI. Asana is all about lists. Unlike Trello, for example, Asana only has one view: A vertical list of tasks. This list UI is very much like a classic outliner or even text editor, in that there's almost always a cursor that's editing something. You can use the keyboard to navigate around. This leads to some immediate weaknesses: Since there's usually a cursor, typing something will typically have the text land in some random, unpredictable place. Hitting Enter creates an empty task. So if you're not super careful, your lists will be littered with errand characters and empty tasks.
This information-dense view means there is never a place to "rest". I can't keep a single task open. There's a split screen that allows you to maximize a task, but it's not quite the same. So in Asana, you never feel like you're in a specific location. It's always the list. It's easy to get lost because there's little or no sense of hiearchy, even though the data model is hiearchical. This UI is doubly problematic because Asana is a heavy single-page app (it takes several seconds for it to "boot") that doesn't lend itself to being opened up in multiple tabs. So it's not very web-app-like.
Really, this kind of editor-like "live" UI seems more appropriate for personal todo lists, but not for collaborative ones. In my mind, a task is a kind of mini project, and a task with subtasks is a bigger kind of mini project (usually you use these for multi-step tasks like launches or big features), but Asana treats them all with equal lightweightness. In fact, in your "My Tasks" view (also a list), Asana will comingle subtasks and top-level tasks, making it confusing because subtasks don't carry their context with them — so "My Tasks" will list something like "Add CNAME", which on its own makes no sense, until you click on it and see that it's a subtask of "superproduct.com launch".
There are lots of minor flaws. The editor is horrible — pasting and undo/redo tend to make the cursor lose its place, there's basically no support for pasting code (no syntax highlighting), the keyboard shortcuts are non-standard and weird (they use tab (!) instead of alt or ctrl as a modifier), and you can't turn off the stupid rich text mode (no Markdown). As mentioned, startup time is bad, and the main page loads as a POST, so if you restart the browser, the browser needs to ask if you "want to submit this form", which is bizarre.
The more I talk about, the less I like it. Unfortunately, so far I haven't found any alternatives that look good enough to migrate.
So Asana is a todo list. Everything is a task. Tasks are assigned. Tasks can have subtasks. They can also have comments, tags and attachments. The top-level organizing construct is the project; projects have tasks and also team members. Oh, and within a project, tasks have order (something which doesn't really work in practice).
So far so good. Most of the problem with Asana is in the UI. Asana is all about lists. Unlike Trello, for example, Asana only has one view: A vertical list of tasks. This list UI is very much like a classic outliner or even text editor, in that there's almost always a cursor that's editing something. You can use the keyboard to navigate around. This leads to some immediate weaknesses: Since there's usually a cursor, typing something will typically have the text land in some random, unpredictable place. Hitting Enter creates an empty task. So if you're not super careful, your lists will be littered with errand characters and empty tasks.
This information-dense view means there is never a place to "rest". I can't keep a single task open. There's a split screen that allows you to maximize a task, but it's not quite the same. So in Asana, you never feel like you're in a specific location. It's always the list. It's easy to get lost because there's little or no sense of hiearchy, even though the data model is hiearchical. This UI is doubly problematic because Asana is a heavy single-page app (it takes several seconds for it to "boot") that doesn't lend itself to being opened up in multiple tabs. So it's not very web-app-like.
Really, this kind of editor-like "live" UI seems more appropriate for personal todo lists, but not for collaborative ones. In my mind, a task is a kind of mini project, and a task with subtasks is a bigger kind of mini project (usually you use these for multi-step tasks like launches or big features), but Asana treats them all with equal lightweightness. In fact, in your "My Tasks" view (also a list), Asana will comingle subtasks and top-level tasks, making it confusing because subtasks don't carry their context with them — so "My Tasks" will list something like "Add CNAME", which on its own makes no sense, until you click on it and see that it's a subtask of "superproduct.com launch".
There are lots of minor flaws. The editor is horrible — pasting and undo/redo tend to make the cursor lose its place, there's basically no support for pasting code (no syntax highlighting), the keyboard shortcuts are non-standard and weird (they use tab (!) instead of alt or ctrl as a modifier), and you can't turn off the stupid rich text mode (no Markdown). As mentioned, startup time is bad, and the main page loads as a POST, so if you restart the browser, the browser needs to ask if you "want to submit this form", which is bizarre.
The more I talk about, the less I like it. Unfortunately, so far I haven't found any alternatives that look good enough to migrate.
I use a TODO.md doc in the project root as long as it's <50 lines of todos and issues. You can use `- [ ]` to create checkbox lists in markdown.
For a larger project I use GitHub issues with tags.
For a larger project I use GitHub issues with tags.
This is a similar method to what I use as well.
I even wrote a Vim syntax plugin for the todo files: https://github.com/tomswartz07/vim-todo
I even wrote a Vim syntax plugin for the todo files: https://github.com/tomswartz07/vim-todo
Markdown is perfect for to-do lists, I keep 5 days (1 week) of todo files that I compile to HTML and view on any device in-browser, and edit on whatever machine I'm working from at the time.
This is a fascinating problem, the "Project Management Tool dilemma": there are hundreds of software alternatives out there, and there seems to be another one coming out everyday, and nonetheless there is always demand for new solutions, and no clear leader in this segment (altough Jira is pretty ahead, and Trello is the strongest newcomer). I've been struggling myself trying to find one in my new work context. I guess there are so many project use-cases, that it's impossible to have a one-size-fits-all solution (and get the pricing right!).
It could be fun to have a global online poll to see who's using what, to know which tools are the most popular, just out of curiosity.
It could be fun to have a global online poll to see who's using what, to know which tools are the most popular, just out of curiosity.
We've been using Phabricator[1], a spin-out of Facebook, and love it. It's perfect for technical teams, and usable enough for the rest of the company.
[1] http://phabricator.org/
[1] http://phabricator.org/
Even if you're not in the market for management software you should go and look at their website. I really want to use it just because they had the balls to advertise Awesome Edition and Serious Business Edition.
We use Jira Agile, like a lot of startups. The metrics portion is really sophisticated which is a plus for management, but from my experience most devs hate working with Jira.
I've also used Trello with teams which I find more pleasant especially if designers need to give you assets, for comment threads, etc.
I mostly use a simple todo.txt for my own personal projects. Though I've been by somewhat migrating these into Bitbucket issues.
A few months ago I wrote a Python script called Jello (Jira + Trello) to copy our sprint tasks from the Jira API into a Trello board via their API. This was pretty awesome and satisfied the devs, but I didn't find the time to build 2-way sync, so someone manually updated Jira at the end of the sprint. Someone built an even better version called Gitlo (GitHub + Trello) [1] which front paged momentarily last week.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10572701
I've also used Trello with teams which I find more pleasant especially if designers need to give you assets, for comment threads, etc.
I mostly use a simple todo.txt for my own personal projects. Though I've been by somewhat migrating these into Bitbucket issues.
A few months ago I wrote a Python script called Jello (Jira + Trello) to copy our sprint tasks from the Jira API into a Trello board via their API. This was pretty awesome and satisfied the devs, but I didn't find the time to build 2-way sync, so someone manually updated Jira at the end of the sprint. Someone built an even better version called Gitlo (GitHub + Trello) [1] which front paged momentarily last week.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10572701
I'm a solo developer.
For short term, post-it notes and legal pads. There's something for me about having those TODO's constantly in my face. I always get them done. And it feels so good to crumple that ball of paper and throw it into the bin. Each sticky is 5-30 minutes of work.
For longer term/planning: Trello. When I'm ready to tackle something, I convert the Trello card into a sticky note, archive the card, and get to work!
Sometimes when I am feeling super unproductive/lazy, and have a buildup of sticky notes, I'll convert all those sticky notes into a neat 1 page legal pad page - handwritten, with checkboxes. By the time I'm done doing converting (and crumpling up all those sticky notes!) I feel rejuvenated enough to work on that second pass.
I love throwing stuff away. When I am SUPER unproductive, I'll tear away the blank part of the sticky note and throw that away.
For short term, post-it notes and legal pads. There's something for me about having those TODO's constantly in my face. I always get them done. And it feels so good to crumple that ball of paper and throw it into the bin. Each sticky is 5-30 minutes of work.
For longer term/planning: Trello. When I'm ready to tackle something, I convert the Trello card into a sticky note, archive the card, and get to work!
Sometimes when I am feeling super unproductive/lazy, and have a buildup of sticky notes, I'll convert all those sticky notes into a neat 1 page legal pad page - handwritten, with checkboxes. By the time I'm done doing converting (and crumpling up all those sticky notes!) I feel rejuvenated enough to work on that second pass.
I love throwing stuff away. When I am SUPER unproductive, I'll tear away the blank part of the sticky note and throw that away.
Any trick you use to get all your tasks into Pomodoro (<30 min) size? How do you handle a coding task that might take half a day?
Still a happy user of FogBugz.
http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/
http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/
I'm actually working on a new start-up to try to take a stab at this problem. Would love to get some beta users, if any of you are interested: http://hellofocus.com/
Could I politely recommend that you put some screenshots on your front page. Generic statements and stock photos really don't make anything more than a superficial impression.
I'd like to get an idea of what I'm signing up for before I commit.
I'd like to get an idea of what I'm signing up for before I commit.
Thanks for the recommendation. We do have some screenshots on the features page. Ideally next iteration will have more focus on the screenshots. Much of our design is changing at the moment while in beta.
It seems the data analysis is an important part of your product; I know this is probably too early, but consider building an API to enable companies to plug-in their existing solutions into yours. It would be hard for us to move away from our existing system, especially since it's integrated with our accounting, billing, and CRM.
I want to try your product, but I'm not going to sign up to do it.
I worked for a company that used Request Tracker for this stuff. It worked for our purposes. I also used it in another context after that.
For the free software projects on the web I'm familiar with, many use Bugzilla to deal with issues and feature requests. Also popular, although a little less so, seems to be Trac. They are all over the web - http://bugzilla.redhat.com is one example for Bugzilla, https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/latest an example for Trac.
For the free software projects on the web I'm familiar with, many use Bugzilla to deal with issues and feature requests. Also popular, although a little less so, seems to be Trac. They are all over the web - http://bugzilla.redhat.com is one example for Bugzilla, https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/latest an example for Trac.
Looking at some of those 'complex' management tasks it seems like a missing feature would be to poll your repositories to look for TODO: 's and list them.
For instance, I'm the sole developer of my web backend, iOS and android platformy thing and while android studio has good TODO: Integration sublime and Xcode require plugins, it would be awesome to have something that looks at all three repositories and tells me where i have scribbled a TODO: somewhere; or even just for comparing the different method names of my app across platforms -
Perhaps someone knows of some such tool already out there that does this?
For instance, I'm the sole developer of my web backend, iOS and android platformy thing and while android studio has good TODO: Integration sublime and Xcode require plugins, it would be awesome to have something that looks at all three repositories and tells me where i have scribbled a TODO: somewhere; or even just for comparing the different method names of my app across platforms -
Perhaps someone knows of some such tool already out there that does this?
Might not work for your development needs, but such a feature exists in PHPStorm/Webstorm, and I'm guessing probably all of the other IntelliJ products.
There is a 'TODO' tab that shows you all 'TODO's in your project directory. Like so: http://i.imgur.com/TW4jXN8.png
There is a 'TODO' tab that shows you all 'TODO's in your project directory. Like so: http://i.imgur.com/TW4jXN8.png
Yes, that's exactly what android studio has (to my understanding it's just a modified IntelliJ environment). But I want one that knows about all three Of my repositories (all of them relating to the same project). A global IDE, if you will. Or at least a global coordinator
Atom has a package like that, it finds TODO in your code and returns that line in a list. You could open a folder containing the other repos in Atom and achieve that.
What does grep or a couple lines of Perl with a clever-ish Regex not do that you need them to, for the TODO finding thing?
Ideally I would have an application that knows that my three repositories are part of the same project, and can display all the TODOs across them. Bonus points for opening Xcode or android studio or sublime to the correct file for editing.
Also, whilst I could do it on the command line, or can do it in each particular development environment (with the right plugins), I want some global overview of the whole shebang
Also, whilst I could do it on the command line, or can do it in each particular development environment (with the right plugins), I want some global overview of the whole shebang
Gah. I would love having this.
I concur with dangrossman, you need to think through your process & systems.
Yup, seconding this. You can't implement a solution without thoroughly understanding what the problem is. Also, be sure you're looping in everyone who would be working with the new system at some point to get their thoughts and feedback- after all, if they have to use the system every day you want to make sure it actually helps instead of hinders them!
We use Trello with a slack integration on certain boards.
The search for a perfect todo, project management app and bug tracker is the perfect distraction. I think what we want the most is the ability to schedule and forget about it until the time it's ready to be done. I've used Todoist, Trello, MantisBT, my own home made todo list and a dozen others. Nothing ever beats pen and paper or just a good review. I'd say Trello, Todoist and a good bug tracker are enough for any small team. Larger teams, I can't speak for.
Imho Jira is one of the best tools voor large projects.
From brainstorming to development to support.
But maybe it feels too old because it can be difficult to setup?
Something simple like Wunderlist or Asana is a good choice, IMO. The less time you spend dealing with your PM tool, the more time you can spend on actually doing important things.
I've also heard this argument if you're running a product, though I'm not sure how on board I am with it: don't record user requests. The important ones will be requested enough that you'll remember it.
I've also heard this argument if you're running a product, though I'm not sure how on board I am with it: don't record user requests. The important ones will be requested enough that you'll remember it.
The important ones do keep making it to the top - it's important to have the pattern recognition and telling others that even though we're saying "not now" for a feature...that can change if it comes up more and more often. The hard part is that people don't tell you when the issue occurs again because they "know you already said no to that..." It's a tough line to follow.
I direct all feature requests go on a list that CS owns and we review it with our customer team, vp eng, myself and qa in a weekly meeting. We talk about the problems, get shared understanding and we collectively agree if we can say "not now". "Worth looking into". "This is easy let's do it now". "This could be tough or easy - needs more info". This is basically what partly feeds a short backlog (~20 items) that gets prioritized during sprint planning. Plus longer term roadmap stories.
Roadmap - a ppt with: Next 3 months (most detail) Next quarter (high level, use cases identified) Next Half (broad themes)
I direct all feature requests go on a list that CS owns and we review it with our customer team, vp eng, myself and qa in a weekly meeting. We talk about the problems, get shared understanding and we collectively agree if we can say "not now". "Worth looking into". "This is easy let's do it now". "This could be tough or easy - needs more info". This is basically what partly feeds a short backlog (~20 items) that gets prioritized during sprint planning. Plus longer term roadmap stories.
Roadmap - a ppt with: Next 3 months (most detail) Next quarter (high level, use cases identified) Next Half (broad themes)
I use GitHub issues and labels. Every issue starts out with a backlog label, when I pull it off the backlog, I assign it to a team member, add in-progress label, and the assigned member will go through it and apply an estimate label saying how long they think it'll take to do. When they're finished, they'll submit a pull request mentioning the issue, and apply a spent label signifying how long it actually took them.
All issues also get scope and type labels. Type signifying bug, feature, hotfix, etc. Scope saying what piece of the software it's for.
We also use milestones for releases. Each release gets a codename, and that codename is used for the milestone and all backlog and in-progress issues are applied to the release it's meant for.
Right now there's no UI for anything, but we're building internal tools that create a visual of this whole system for us.
All issues also get scope and type labels. Type signifying bug, feature, hotfix, etc. Scope saying what piece of the software it's for.
We also use milestones for releases. Each release gets a codename, and that codename is used for the milestone and all backlog and in-progress issues are applied to the release it's meant for.
Right now there's no UI for anything, but we're building internal tools that create a visual of this whole system for us.
Sounds like you need a general project management system? I would give basecamp a go, if your needs are simple. If your needs are simpler, a text document is great and can take you fairly far. It works for a lot of people and use cases.
Most of the time, as a dev working on a client codebase, i do just fine with github issues.
But for everything else, if you're like me and have a lot of different things to capture and track, I haven't found anything that cuts it. So I'm close to launching a data platform for when you want to have your own workflows, analytics, monitoring and reporting of... anything. So you could use it to get an email every day of your open todos, or to nag you until you workout, or just simply act as a place to keep bits of information.
Most of the time, as a dev working on a client codebase, i do just fine with github issues.
But for everything else, if you're like me and have a lot of different things to capture and track, I haven't found anything that cuts it. So I'm close to launching a data platform for when you want to have your own workflows, analytics, monitoring and reporting of... anything. So you could use it to get an email every day of your open todos, or to nag you until you workout, or just simply act as a place to keep bits of information.
I use Things for my todo list. Been using it for years and once you get the flow down it's amazing.
Things is the perfect midpoint between a simple todo list and a complex, overwhelming GTD-like system. You can easily use it however you want, and the iPhone syncing is great.
I use and highly recommend Fossil (http://www.fossil-scm.org). It can handle each of your main purposes out of the box with ease.
It's got a good command line interface, a built-in web interface, it's self-contained, and the model is easy to understand. It's simple enough that I can use it as a replacement for RCS for personal stuff (like a LaTeX document) but it scales to large projects too (it's used by SQLite and Tcl/Tk, for example).
It's also trustworthy, with a solid, portable, and well-tested code base—not a surprise since it was originally authored by D. Richard Hipp. I have no clue why it isn't more popular.
It's got a good command line interface, a built-in web interface, it's self-contained, and the model is easy to understand. It's simple enough that I can use it as a replacement for RCS for personal stuff (like a LaTeX document) but it scales to large projects too (it's used by SQLite and Tcl/Tk, for example).
It's also trustworthy, with a solid, portable, and well-tested code base—not a surprise since it was originally authored by D. Richard Hipp. I have no clue why it isn't more popular.
Yeah, there doesn't seem to be all that much discussion about fossil compared to a few years ago. It is clunky in spots (e.g. the command line interface to tickets), though its a pretty interesting option.
I will highly recommend Redmine. Using it for almost 2 years and love it. It has pretty much all the features of Jira but absolutely free of cost. http://www.redmine.org/
We've been using Taiga[0] recently. It's pretty nice, and free for now. I'm a big fan of how easy it is to loop it into our workflow.
[0]: https://taiga.io/
[0]: https://taiga.io/
I use JIRA for my day work and GitHub Issues for my open-source projects.
I'm a long-term JIRA user (and even somewhat evangelist). There are probably many much more "modern" issue trackers over there, but JIRA worked extremely well for me for many years. There are a few big problems with JIRA, though (field-level security and limited issue hierarchy).
For my OS-projects I've found GitHub issues to be more than sufficient. That's what I'd call clean and simple.
I'm a long-term JIRA user (and even somewhat evangelist). There are probably many much more "modern" issue trackers over there, but JIRA worked extremely well for me for many years. There are a few big problems with JIRA, though (field-level security and limited issue hierarchy).
For my OS-projects I've found GitHub issues to be more than sufficient. That's what I'd call clean and simple.
We are a bit bigger (150 people or so, so take this with a grain of salt).
We use Zendesk to track bugs. It's nice because of its assignment features. That said, I find it terrible about everything else.
Feature requests are currently in UserVoice, however we're about to move over to Aha.io instead as we use that for product roadmapping and it's easier to move a request right into the plan and then push into rally (we use rally instead of jira for sprint planning)
We use Zendesk to track bugs. It's nice because of its assignment features. That said, I find it terrible about everything else.
Feature requests are currently in UserVoice, however we're about to move over to Aha.io instead as we use that for product roadmapping and it's easier to move a request right into the plan and then push into rally (we use rally instead of jira for sprint planning)
Our team uses Thoughtworks Mingle (https://www.thoughtworks.com/mingle/) Its got a simple, rich interface and is free for a 5 user team.
You can create your own card walls and track features/bugs/to-do items with different types of cards.
Works really well for Agile teams.
Excel sheet on office online. Urgent tasks go on the top left. Quick tasks go up.
Microsoft Outlook contacts: put the word todo in the comments field. Any notes also in comments. Everything is searchable. Common items come up together on search by keywords.
A todo folder in the file system full of text files backed by a Git repository. This is kind of the equivalent of microsoft outlook contacts for me.
Flags on emails.
Microsoft Outlook contacts: put the word todo in the comments field. Any notes also in comments. Everything is searchable. Common items come up together on search by keywords.
A todo folder in the file system full of text files backed by a Git repository. This is kind of the equivalent of microsoft outlook contacts for me.
Flags on emails.
Trello + Slack + Github.
1. Github to track issues, INTEGRATE it with Slack.
2. Trello for your agile board, INTEGRATE it with Slack.
3. If might also be a good idea to write code that emails and sends a text message to all the mobile phones of your developer.
Using those tools felt like a breath of fresh air. They have a mobile app and web app that has an amazing UI/UX.
Using those tools felt like a breath of fresh air. They have a mobile app and web app that has an amazing UI/UX.
I use LiquidPlanner because of 1) ordinal prioritization 2) confidence interval based estimates 3) easy to track project status 4) easy to review developer workload
More details in http://xn.pinkhamster.net/download/New_Process_and_Tools.pdf
More details in http://xn.pinkhamster.net/download/New_Process_and_Tools.pdf
I like to use https://kanbanflow.com/
It takes the usual kanban approach that Jira and Trello use, but is contained in a no-nonsense html5 friendly, mobile friendly website. No complaints, free to start, and premium features aren't costly if you need them.
It takes the usual kanban approach that Jira and Trello use, but is contained in a no-nonsense html5 friendly, mobile friendly website. No complaints, free to start, and premium features aren't costly if you need them.
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Iron out your process. Use free tools that make it easy to export your data if it doesn't work.
Trello (other kanban tools) - very flexible. Gitlab. Free, open-source, host it yourself.
Jira is a powerful tool, it's also very complicated and expensive. You don't want to blindly jump into that commitment.
Trello (other kanban tools) - very flexible. Gitlab. Free, open-source, host it yourself.
Jira is a powerful tool, it's also very complicated and expensive. You don't want to blindly jump into that commitment.
http://ifdefined.com/bugtrackernet.html
has just enough fields, features, and customization to be useful but not overwhelming.
has just enough fields, features, and customization to be useful but not overwhelming.
I use Trello for my side-project.
I like putting the tasks into the the different columns so I have a Ideas, Open, In-Progress, Shipped.
Yes, I like Trello but sometimes I forget about it and yeah life.
I like putting the tasks into the the different columns so I have a Ideas, Open, In-Progress, Shipped.
Yes, I like Trello but sometimes I forget about it and yeah life.
We're using Usersnap and it works great for larger projects. With a easy to use filtering / tagging & searching features it simple to find certain bug reports.
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As a sole developper, I use TodoList from AbstractSpoon
I am totally addicted to it.
For a team, it's probably not what you need though.
For a team, it's probably not what you need though.
Thanks for all of the feedback and responses. This is helpful—and I have some reading to do. :-)
I've used Wrike a lot on bigger teams, works great. Not a fan of Asana.
We use redmine for development ticket tracking and basecamp client side.
Zenhub (integrates with github), Bugsnag.
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sticky notes!
1. Tracking issues
2. Posting to-do items
3. Noting new features
BugHerd is great for client websites, but we feel like it’s not quite right for a more long-term build.
Specifically, our lists get so long (we have a few hundred items in the Backlog) that it becomes difficult to find certain issues. Plus, organizing them isn’t that smooth.
I know some use Jira for this sort of thing, but it feels pretty old-fashioned. And, I know there are many other products, but researching all of them seems daunting.
So, I’m going to cheat, and ask: What do you use? Why? Do you like it?