Issue tracking across borders
Anyone who has been a part of the offshore development process knows what a pain issue tracking is. Issues arise out of at least 2 scenarios
- What the client explains, the team does not fully understand and does something totally different
- What the client explains, the team understands and then still obvious bugs are introduced because of sloppy work, tight deadlines, small misunderstandings and so on
There cannot be a project in a distributed environment where the above scenarios are not experienced – some more than the other.
These cases lead to frustration at both ends. And for obvious reasons, greatly increases the time and direct cost for the vendor to deliver the project.
What can be done to avoid such scenarios?
We at InfoBeans have created a home grown issue tracking system. And this not only tracks bugs or defects, but also tracks features and enhancement requests. Issues are put into the system by both parties. Some screen shots of the issue tracking system that we are using, will show how and why it is so effective in trying to reduce the above scenarios.
Apart from just the issue and its description, one can add images, documents and videos that can really help in creating a record of what was requested and what was given. After all a picture is worth a thousand words, and by extension, a video probably a million.
The client can directly assign issues to either the developer concerned or to the team lead or project manager. This also helps in fast forwarding the issues directly, if the client is comfortable with direct interaction. Of course flexibility in process is key here.
Developers also get a comprehensive view of the features required. Document revisions are added and therefore make it easy for the developer to compare earlier versions and the change requested. It also makes for easy change control and management and related expenses can be easily tracked.
Please see the end of this post for some screen shots of our issue tracker.
We have been quite successful in increasing efficiencies many fold into our system.
Would love your feedback on what can be done more to improve visibility for both parties.
Its a good tool. Is this software freeware? How do i implement it in my company if i would want to set it up?
harish
June 30, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Harish – thanks for your comment. This is not a free tool. We have developed this in house for our internal usage – Siddharth
Siddharth
June 30, 2009 at 4:15 pm
This is always good to have such systems for issues tracking
The Key advantage of such tool is tracking bugs and defects but it also play the role of information manager where you can record the project life history for future reference. Imagine having all of your data in the same place, being able to access it anytime when needed.
We use bug tracking tool that we have developed in-house and for better response time we practice interacting real time with the clients by using online meeting tool (WEBex) and video conferencing. This is a faster way of communication and gives transparent visibility for both the parties.
Pratnesh
June 30, 2009 at 6:49 pm
We are using SVN as our source safe. We generally need to relate the revision number to every bug we log into our freeware tool called Bugtracker.net. This tool supports this and we are in process of configuring it. Does your tool support this functionality? If not then it might be a great value add for your tool.
Just a thought to make your product better.
Thanks,
Harish
Harish
July 2, 2009 at 9:52 am