Ticket Triage

Ticket triage is a weekly, informal ritual that is meant to solve the problem of tickets getting opened and then forgotten about. It is simple and keeps project momentum going and prevents ticket cruft.

It fosters conversation around project tasks and philosophies as they relate to milestones.

Process

  • The role of Ticket Triager rotates regularly-ish, and is assigned ad hoc

  • The Triager needs a Trac account

  • The Triager looks at all the tickets that have been created in the last week (or month, etc.)

    • They can use a custom query or do this as the week progresses

    • BONUS ROUND: Dig up a stale ticket from the past

  • Assign each ticket to a milestone on the Roadmap

  • The following situations merit discussion:

    • A ticket doesn’t have an appropriate milestone and we should create one

    • A ticket, in vanishingly rare circumstances, should be deleted

      • The ticket is spam

      • The ticket contains sensitive information and harm will come to one or more people if it continues to be distributed

    • A ticket could be assigned to multiple milestones

    • There is another question about a ticket

  • These tickets will be brought as necessary to one of our meetings (currently Tuesdays) for discussion