Archives November 18, 2023

Mapping Your Project Odyssey: Jira Tasks to Chart the Course for Web App Development

While I have used JIRA in a limited way in the past, I’m still pretty new to the platform. I wanted to see if ChatGPT could help with some of the tasks to make sure I’m hitting all the right points. This way I can get some practice with JIRA and integrating it into my development process. However, since I’m a team of one at the moment, I think some of the really important collaboration features JIRA offers will go to waste.

The first thing I did was to make sure that my JIRA project and my GitHub repo for the project were integrated with each other. I’m using the free version of JIRA, so I can’t actually set permissions for viewing, and you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t want to make everyone on earth an admin, so hopefully the integration with GitHub will serve as a stopgap. In case you’re wondering how things are going, check out the GECACS repo.

In my previous post, Crafting Clear Paths: A Comprehensive Guide to Defining Requirements for Your Web Application Project – My Data Science Journey (myordinaryjourney.com), ChatGPT outlined the steps I should take for developing and capturing system requirements. In this post, I’m going to be adding tasks into JIRA based on Chat’s previous step 1 recommendations.

My ChatGPT Prompt

For step one, can you recommend some JIRA issues I should be tracking?

ChatGPT Response

At the initial stage of defining requirements and planning your project, here are some Jira issues or tasks you might consider tracking:

  1. Epic Creation:
    • Create epics in Jira to represent major themes or sections of your project. For example:
      • Epic 1: Requirement Gathering
      • Epic 2: Database Setup
      • Epic 3: User Authentication
  2. User Stories:
    • Break down your requirements into user stories. These represent specific functionalities or features from a user’s perspective. For instance:
      • Story 1: As a guild librarian, I want to add new equipment to the system.
      • Story 2: As a guild member, I want to check out equipment for use.
      • Story 3: As a guild member, I want to see a history of equipment I’ve checked out.
  3. Technical Tasks:
    • Include technical tasks necessary for setting up your development environment, integrating Firebase, and configuring the backend. For instance:
      • Task 1: Set up Python and Flask development environment.
      • Task 2: Configure Firebase project for the database.
      • Task 3: Implement Firebase user authentication.
  4. Documentation:
    • Track tasks related to documentation, which is crucial for maintaining clear records and instructions for the project. For example:
      • Task 4: Create a requirements document based on stakeholder meetings.
      • Task 5: Draft user documentation for the guild librarian on using the application.
  5. Stakeholder Collaboration:
    • Create tasks related to stakeholder collaboration, such as scheduling meetings and gathering requirements. For instance:
      • Task 6: Schedule meeting with guild librarian to discuss equipment tracking needs.
      • Task 7: Review and validate requirements with stakeholders.
  6. Project Setup:
    • Include tasks related to setting up your project management system and initial configurations. For example:
      • Task 8: Set up Scrum/Kanban board in Jira for project management.
      • Task 9: Define workflow stages for user stories and epics in Jira.
  7. Research and Exploration:
    • Track tasks related to exploring different tools, technologies, or best practices that might be beneficial for your project. For instance:
      • Task 10: Research best practices for Firebase database design.
      • Task 11: Explore Flask extensions for Firebase integration.

These suggested issues and tasks in Jira can serve as a starting point for organizing your project and breaking down the work into manageable components.

The Result

Epic Creation

I just used what Chat gave me for the Epics. I will have to add more when I get to the other steps.

User Stories

In addition to the user stories Chat defined for me, I added:

  • As a guild member, I want to see where I am on the waitlist.
  • As a guild member, I was to reserve a piece of equipment.
  • As a guild librarian, I want to see what equipment is checked out.
  • As a guild librarian, I want to see where each piece of equipment is currently located.

Task Creation

For the most part I used that tasks that Chat recommended. However, I chose to omit the tasks defined in the project setup step, as I’ve already done those. Although thinking about it now, I wonder if I should add them and just mark them complete.

    Next Steps

    My next steps will be to do my task estimation using story points, associating the tasks and user stories with the epics, and creating any additional epics, user stories, or tasks that I may have missed. I will also need to define my sprint length. Right now, in my communications plan, I am set up to do weekly check-ins with the librarian to give status updates. I think I’ll change that to every two weeks so that I can align the communication plan with the sprint length.

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