Enhancing Classification And Allocation For Multiple Team Members Via Subtasks And Git History
Introduction
In the realm of agile project management, accurate time allocation is crucial for understanding team performance, resource distribution, and project costing. This article delves into the intricacies of enhancing classification and allocation logic within a project management system to better handle scenarios where multiple team members contribute to a single story via subtasks. The current system, which primarily focuses on parent stories, often overlooks the significant effort distributed across subtasks, leading to an incomplete and potentially inaccurate representation of team contributions. This article explores the objectives, acceptance criteria, implementation notes, and testing strategies required to improve this process, ensuring a more comprehensive and equitable allocation of time and effort across all team members.
Current Challenges in Time Allocation
Currently, the sprint allocation logic simplifies calculations by excluding Jira subtasks from the final time allocation. While this approach reduces complexity, it obscures valuable effort data, particularly when multiple team members contribute through subtasks linked to a single parent story. The existing system calculates allocation percentages solely for the parent story, necessitating manual intervention to account for contributions made via subtasks.
This manual process involves several steps, which are inefficient and prone to errors:
- Manually checking which team members worked on related subtasks.
- Adding up their time or story points.
- Including them in the time distribution.
- Inspecting Git history to identify code commits related to the main story, especially when no subtasks exist.
This manual effort not only consumes valuable time but also increases the risk of overlooking contributions, leading to an inaccurate representation of individual and team effort.
Objectives for Enhanced Classification and Allocation
The primary objective is to enhance the classification and allocation logic to provide a more accurate and comprehensive view of team contributions. This involves several key improvements, each designed to address specific shortcomings in the current system.
Rolling Up Subtask Participants and Effort
This is a critical step towards a more accurate representation of team effort. By including subtask participants and their effort in the parent story's allocation, the system can capture the contributions of all team members involved in completing the story. This ensures that no one's work is overlooked, providing a fairer and more complete picture of project progress.
Counting All Engineers on Subtasks
The system should automatically identify and count all engineers who worked on subtasks as contributors to the main story. This is crucial for recognizing the collaborative nature of software development, where multiple team members often contribute to different aspects of a single feature or story. By including all contributors, the system can provide a more accurate reflection of the team's collective effort.
Checking Git History for Commits
In cases where no subtasks exist, the system should intelligently analyze Git history for commits related to the story. This involves searching for commits that reference the story branch, commit messages, or pull requests. This step is essential for capturing contributions made directly to the codebase, ensuring that all forms of effort are accounted for in the allocation process. The Git history serves as a valuable source of information, providing insights into the contributions of team members who may not have been directly associated with subtasks.
Comprehensive TimeAllocation Output
The final TimeAllocation output must include a detailed breakdown of all contributors, along with their proportional splits. This comprehensive view allows for a clear understanding of how time and effort were distributed across the team. The output should sum to 100%, ensuring that all contributions are accounted for and that the allocation percentages are accurate.
Reflecting Contributions in CSV and Jira
The enhanced allocation logic should be seamlessly integrated into the final CSV output and Jira push. The CSV should include a column for each contributor, clearly indicating their share of the effort. The Jira push should accurately log the time against each participant, if supported by the platform. This integration ensures that the allocation data is consistently reflected across all relevant systems, providing a unified view of project progress and team contributions.
Acceptance Criteria for the Enhanced System
To ensure that the enhanced classification and allocation logic meets the defined objectives, specific acceptance criteria have been established. These criteria serve as a checklist for evaluating the success of the implementation.
Automatic Detection and Inclusion of Subtask Participants
When running sprint allocate, the allocation logic must automatically detect linked subtasks for each parent story, gather all assignees from those subtasks, and include them in the total TimeAllocation for that parent story. This ensures that the system accurately captures the contributions made via subtasks, providing a more complete picture of team effort.
Git History Lookup and Contributor Resolution
If there are no subtasks, the tool must intelligently look up the Git history for commits referencing the story key (e.g., FN-123), resolve contributor Git usernames, and map them to known users in the system. This capability is crucial for capturing contributions made directly to the codebase, ensuring that all forms of effort are accounted for in the allocation process.
Proportional Time Allocation
The total time percentage must be split proportionally among contributors. Two options are considered for this split:
- An even split by default (e.g., 2 people → 50% each), providing a simple and equitable distribution of effort.
- Weighting by subtask points, if available, allowing for a more nuanced allocation that reflects the complexity and effort associated with each subtask.
Detailed TimeAllocation Output
The final TimeAllocation output must list all contributors per story and sum to 100% when combined. This ensures that all contributions are accounted for and that the allocation percentages are accurate. The output should provide a clear and comprehensive view of how time and effort were distributed across the team.
Updated CSV and Jira Integration
The updated CSV must include a column for each contributor, clearly indicating their share of the effort. The Jira push must accurately log the time against each participant, if supported by the platform. This integration ensures that the allocation data is consistently reflected across all relevant systems, providing a unified view of project progress and team contributions.
Comprehensive Testing
Thorough testing is essential to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the enhanced allocation logic. The testing strategy includes several key scenarios:
- A parent story with multiple subtasks, ensuring that all contributors are counted.
- A parent story with no subtasks, verifying that Git contributors are correctly identified.
- Edge cases, such as unknown commit authors, ensuring that the system falls back cleanly and does not produce errors.
Implementation Notes for Enhancements
The implementation of the enhanced classification and allocation logic requires careful consideration of several key aspects. These notes outline the technical considerations and steps involved in bringing the proposed improvements to fruition.
Extending Data Structures
The Sprint and TimeAllocation structs should be extended to support a list of Contributors instead of a single user. This modification is crucial for capturing the contributions of multiple team members to a single story, providing a more accurate representation of effort distribution. By allowing for multiple contributors, the system can reflect the collaborative nature of software development more effectively.
GitClient Helper
A GitClient helper should be added to facilitate the retrieval of commit information from the Git repository. This helper will utilize commands like git log --grep to find commits by story ID and map commit authors to configured user IDs. The GitClient helper will serve as a crucial bridge between the project management system and the version control system, enabling the automatic identification of contributors based on their commit history.
Optional Git Check
An option to skip the Git check (--skip-git) should be added, providing flexibility for scenarios where Git history analysis is not required or desired. This option allows users to tailor the allocation process to their specific needs, improving efficiency and reducing unnecessary overhead. The ability to skip the Git check can be particularly useful in projects where subtasks are the primary means of tracking individual contributions.
User Mapping Configuration
Configuration should be used to handle Git-to-Jira user mappings, especially in cases where usernames differ between the two systems. This ensures that contributors are correctly identified and mapped, even if their usernames are not consistent across platforms. The user mapping configuration provides a crucial link between the Git commit authors and their corresponding identities within the project management system.
Subtask Handling
Ensure that subtasks are still excluded from double-counting points — only their people/effort should roll up to the parent story. This prevents overestimation of effort and maintains the integrity of the allocation process. The focus should be on capturing the contributions of individuals working on subtasks, rather than double-counting the effort already accounted for in the parent story.
Comprehensive Testing Strategy
A robust testing strategy is essential to ensure the accuracy, reliability, and effectiveness of the enhanced classification and allocation logic. The testing plan encompasses a range of scenarios, from unit tests to integration tests, to validate the system's behavior under various conditions.
Unit Tests
Unit tests should be implemented to verify specific aspects of the enhanced logic, such as the subtasks-to-parent rollup and Git contributor detection. These tests provide a granular level of validation, ensuring that individual components of the system function correctly.
Integration Tests
Integration tests should simulate a full sprint with stories, subtasks, and Git data to ensure that the final allocation includes all contributors. These tests provide a holistic view of the system's performance, verifying that all components work together seamlessly.
CSV and Jira Push Validation
Testing should also ensure that the CSV and Jira push reflect the multi-contributor split accurately. This involves verifying that the CSV includes a column for each contributor and that the Jira push correctly logs time against each participant, if supported. The consistency of data across different systems is crucial for maintaining a unified view of project progress and team contributions.
Edge Case Handling
The testing strategy should include scenarios that cover edge cases, such as unknown commit authors, to ensure that the system handles unexpected situations gracefully. Proper handling of edge cases is essential for maintaining the robustness and reliability of the allocation process.
Conclusion
Enhancing the classification and allocation logic to handle multiple team members via subtasks and Git history is a critical step towards more accurate and equitable project management. By rolling up subtask contributions, intelligently analyzing Git history, and providing comprehensive allocation outputs, the system can provide a more complete and nuanced view of team effort. The implementation notes and testing strategies outlined in this article provide a roadmap for achieving these improvements, ultimately leading to better resource allocation, improved team performance insights, and a more accurate representation of project progress. The benefits of this enhanced system extend beyond simple time tracking, fostering a culture of transparency and recognition within the development team.