Archive for category Uncategorized

New: Active Role Highlight

Some projects might have a complex workflow with many roles involved e.g. a User Story can have Developer, QA, Analyst, Verifier roles associated with it.  So you might want to know who’s currently working on a User Story as you look at USs  list, with no sideway clicks to other pages.

That’s why we implemented the active role highlight in TargetProcess 2.18.4:

active-role-highlight

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New: Visual Bugs and Tasks Count In Kanban

We released TargetProcess 2.18.2 today with several fixes and cute pics  in Kanban board: visual bugs and tasks count for user stories.

This is not an ultimate health diagnostic utility for user stories, but it’s at least possible to see right away how many bugs and tasks are wrapped in in it.

bugs

If you have any better images for “bugs” and “tasks” :), you’re welcome to submit your comments to TargetProcess UX Group:

http://groups.google.com/group/uxtargetprocess

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TargetProcess 2.17: what’s new

As we’re working on the major winter release, let’s take a closer look at some selected new features that appeared in TargetProcess 2.17 so far:

1. Custom fields in Time Sheet:

time-type

2. Custom Reports Editing:  you can now click Save As and edit some selected criteria without creating this report from scratch as it previously was:

save-as-report-edit

3. Quick add Test Cases: now it’s possible to add a Test Case right from User Story view. Several clicks saved:

quick-add-test-case3

4. Items count in Kanban board columns:

items-count-in-kanban-board

5. Much requested “no release” filter has been added to User Stories list. Now you can filter out the User Stories that are not included to Releases:

no-release-filter

6. Much requested as well -  logged user full name is now displayed:

logged-user-full-name

7. Change Password functionality added to Settings:

change-password

The new prioritize screen, improved searchEclipse/Mylyn integration also appeared in TargetProcess v 2.17.  We’ll keep you posted of the updates.

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Improved Search in TargetProcess 2.17

Improved Search in TargetProcess 2.17 is one of those small but essential updates wanted for quite a long time.

Previously, only names and description fields of entities were searched. Now search runs in comments as well:

search-in-comments

It’s possible to filter out search results based on states:

filter-search-by-state

and based on Types:

type-filter-for-search

See our change log for more updates in TargetProcess 2.17.

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TargetProcess: Kanban Digest

The year 2009 is ending, so it’s time to look back and remember the ideas that have been guiding us. One of the main features (if not the most important one) that appeared in TargetProcess in 2009 is Kanban support.

Take a look at this collection of posts in TargetProcess agile blog related to Kanban.

See how Kanban is supported in TargetProcess agile project management software: Kanban Board, Cumulative Flow Diagram, Lead and Cycle Time reports.

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Kanban Items Count and State Filter in Search Results

Just a quick overview of 2 small but nice features, new in recent builds:

Items count displayed in Kanban board columns

Take a look at the screenshot:

kanban-board-items-count

Now we’ve got color coding to indicate whether the count of items in a given column/state in Kanban board exceeds the allowed limit (by the way, setting limits is done in one of the grey boxes on the upper right called “Customize”.)

With red arrows on the screenshot above, we see that for In Progress column 5 items is a limit and 5 items are in progress. All OK - the color is grey — it’s about neutrality. For Coded column, we’ve got the red light — the limit is 3, and currently as many as 7 entities are in this state. With Ready to Merge column — no items are there, and the limit is 3, so we’ve got the light green color for this column. It’s almost like traffic lights :)

Ability to filter by State added to Search column.

See the screenshot:

search-filter

For example, as a Product Owner you might want to filter out all the entities in Open state based on some keyword (search string) — “effort” as in the screenshot.

In the future we’re going to implement more advanced filtering for search.  As soon as next week we will enable search in Comments fields (not only in Name and in Description), so this small update with filtering by State is our first step towards powerful search capabilities in TargetProcess.

Please, refer to our change log for the complete list of all the updates and fixes in the latest builds.

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Product Update: Fast Test Cases Execution in TargetProcess

In v.2.16.5 we’ve added some nice feature that simplifies test cases execution for a specific user story.

Basically, this is the fastest way to test a specific user story. You don’t need to create test plan and test run. Just navigate to user story view and open test cases tab. This tab provides all the required functionality:

  1. Expand test case to see details.
  2. Mark test case as passed or failed and open next test case in the list.
  3. Re-order test case using drag and drop.

The list is fully ajaxified, with no page reload on all actions.

testcases_userstory

Sometimes tester wants to correct test case name or steps. It can be done right there without page reload.

testcase_edit

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Re-designing ToDo List: Personas

We are incorporating UX practices into our development process. It is not so easy, the first attempt was with Eclipse plugin. Second one is ToDo list re-design. I don’t know what will be the end result. Maybe we will merge several screens into one (for example, Time Sheet and ToDo list), maybe something else, but we are starting from scratch and focusing on the needs of real users. We are going to write scenarios for all personas, create flows and wireframes, create prototypes and test them on real customers. Let’s see how it goes.

Recently we’ve had a series of meetings dedicated to Personas. There were several testers, several developers and product owner on the meeting. We’ve spent about 5 hours in total and here are some results.

Personas important for ToDo list are marked with a green circle. Manual Tester is selected as a key persona (double circled).

personas1

junior

Andy is a serious geek. It was easy, since we have a former game developer on board :)

senior

Everybody agreed that Alan is a true designer. Someone even said that he knows a very similar guy working as a web designer.

designer

And our development team likes the approach.

like

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TargetProcess v.2.16 with improved Kanban support

We’ve released v.2.16 with even better Kanban support. It includes:

  • Iteration-less development. Now you may switch off iterations.
  • Kanban Board on Program level
  • Lead and Cycle time reports
  • Reports improvements for iteration-less development

Other improvements include TFS integration, better navigation between projects, plugins performance speed up.

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Kanban Board on 42 inches TV

Today we’ve setup Kanban Board on 42 inches TV in the office.

Scrum Master expresses his feelings about digital Kanban Board.

Scrum Master expresses his feelings about digital Kanban Board.

Kanban Board Placement. Daily Meetings are near TV now.

Kanban Board Placement. Daily Meetings are near TV now.

Close up view.

Close up view

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