New value: "One why per issue"

Why

I've seen problems go unsolved leading to frustration because we often end up solving a problem other than the one originally faced.

Sometimes this happens because we focus on the proposal someone suggested instead of the problem they were trying to solve. We then notice it solves another problem the proposer wasn't interested in, and end up pivoting to solve that instead. Either the issue gets closed or time drags on without the original problem being discussed.

Other times we come up with a new proposal which helps an incidental concern raised in the issue description, ignoring the main problem originally described.

What

We can avoid this by having one issue per problem solved instead of one issue per proposal. If a solution solves two problems it can close two issues.

This sacrifices keeping the discussion in one place but ensures we solve each individual problem.

We need to be vigilant to spot this and it can help to consider this value whenever we update an issue description, reduce scope, and whenever we move towards a different proposal in in issue.

I heard one team has a rule that whenever you are tempted to write and in an issue description it is time to consider a second issue.

Related

Closes #2020 (closed)