Compliance process clarity and improvement suggestions
Intro
With the recent changes to the Compliance team (new EM, 1x FE and 1x BE moving to another team) there is a relatively little experience now around processes and planning. This issue has been created to layout the current processes and suggest some improvements so that the whole team can review and give feedback.
The three main outcomes from this:
- Clarity on roles and responsibility of all team members.
- Clarity on the reason behind these processes.
- Get planning 1-2 Milestones ahead of the current Milestone
These suggestions also take in the new cross-functional prioritisation process.
Milestone Planning
Pre-planning
Pre-planning takes place at the start of the month on the first Thursday. This is lead by the PM, EM and Quality Manager. The PM will create a draft planning issue and the PM, EM and QM will outline the highest priority issues within each of their respective areas (typefeature , typemaintenance and typebug ).
Currently this can include issues that are both in planning (workflowsolution validation and workflowplanning breakdown) or workflowready for development.
EM will outline the estimated capacity of the Milestone.
This time is also used to identify any unknowns or questions that need to be answered and resolved prior to the final planning.
Planning
Final planning is completed by the second Friday of the month. With the capacity, the PM, EM and QM can now discuss which issues from each Type will make the Milestone. We aim for 60% features, 30% maintenance, and 10% bugs per milestone.
Each area will include a 20% stretch target of issues. EG capacity 40W x 60% features = 24W + 20% = ~28W
With a list now determined, Milestones and label workflowready for development can be added to this work, ready for the Milestone to start.
Improvements
Planning Issue
As with outcome #3 above it is essentially to have planning issues in the current Milestone, so that they can be built in the following. But currently there is no clarity on how many issues that need planning are added and who will complete them. This adhoc nature can cause some of the team to complete more planning issues than others and effect MR rate metrics. The lack of clarity can cause disruption later in a milestone. Finally there is potential for it not be done in time for next Milestone planning
Create a new board that has all of the %Backlog items broken down by Priority (priority1 etc). EM will then create a report of this that uses the Priority and Weight to determine if there is "enough" in the backlog. This can then determine if we need more or less planning issues. Would be great to include this in the Retro retro reports.
I also propose that we include a max of 2 planning issues per person at the start of a Milestone, this is a rule of thumb while we work on above suggestion to refine this. Then when a Milestone is added to the issue, they are also assigned to team members. This is to provide clarity on what and who is doing what planning in the Milestone. This is also to cap the amount of time spent and ensure that it is completed before the first Thursday of the month.
Planning board
To help better visualise the pre-planning and planning process we can use the cross-functional prioritisation board
This board has list for the 3 types typefeature , typemaintenance and typebug
We can add a filter for the labels ~"compliance::planning" and workflowscheduling, workflowsolution validation and workflowplanning breakdown to show the issues that the PM, EM and QM want to include in the next milestone. ~"compliance::planning" is the important label here to show which issues want to be included in the next Milestone. It is therefore important that the PM, EM and QM will be required to add these label to their issues and keep them updated.
This will help too quickly and easily see the capacity breakdown.
Add the lists for priority EG priority1 to this board so that the PM, EM and QM can also see the breakdown of issues that will be included in the next Milestone by priority.
Once final planning is ready PM, EM and QM will update the Goal for the Milestone and quickly explain how the Issue in this Milestone achieve that goal.
During Milestone
Work board
Currently we use this board to track work in progress, Milestone Board
Weekly Meeting
Once a week we have a Compliance Weekly meeting where the agenda is the following:
- Walk the milestone board
- Workflow planning breakdown issues
- Feature flag issues
- Closed issues
- Walk the refinement board
- Review backlog dashboards (if first weekly of the milestone)
- Talk about release post blockers (if final weekly of the milestone)
- Sam: Review priorities
Improvements
Milestone Board
Remove the lists for priority EG priority1 etc from the milestones board. Doing this is to remove the importance on priority and instead focus on the Workflow of the current Milestone issues.
Priority should already have been sorted by the EM, PM and QM, it has been added to planning board as above. Also before the Milestone starts the EM, PM and QM should prioritise the issues in order of priority on the workflowready for development List.
With the workflowready for development List in priority order, when team members have capacity they can simply take the top issue from the list.
Weekly meeting
During the Compliance Weekly meeting the DRI will go through the following Lists in order:
Build Issues
- ~"Closed::done" within that week
- Lets celebrate, quick demo and ensure release post scheduled if necessary
-
workflowblocked
- Why is it blocked? What can we do to help get it unblocked?
-
workflowverification
- Discuss timeframe?
-
workflowin review
- Any blocker or issue? Timeframe?
-
workflowin dev
- Any blocker or issue? Timeframe?
The reason for doing it in this order is to focus first on the team successes and celebrate first
Then it is to focus on how we as a team can get issues closed and keep each other accountable.
We do not discuss workflowready for development as this is an open List, and anybody when they have capacity can self assign the next issue in the list to themselves. This is inline with Gitlab Manager of One. The only pre-assigned issues will be issues that require planning.
Planning Issues
-
workflowplanning breakdown
- Any blocker or issue? Timeframe?
-
workflowsolution validation
- Any blocker or issue? Timeframe?
Reviewing this list confirms that we are on track to have all planning issues completed before the first Thursday of the month. This is so we can effectively plan out the next Milestone.
Next Steps
-
Circulate Issue with Compliance team -
Discuss any feedback and update as appropriate -
Build / Update Issue boards -
Update compliance group handbook page -
Update shared meetings