Kanban card visual to show sub-task blocking

[scott.lake]

I think it would be quite helpful to have a small icon show on cards when there are open blocking subtasks, and a separate icon to show if there are open blocking issues.

I have several ideas for what this could be.

Something as simple as the 'no' red circle with ST in front of the circle for subtask blocking, or an I in front of the circle for Issue blocking.

Maybe this exists and I'm ignorant to it?

[Stas Gavrylov]

That would be extremely useful to save yourself some time.

[Claire Schlessinger]

Agree!

[inna.vitko]

would be super helpful

[Laurent Petit]

Agree, let's do more visual Kanban please! :pray:

[Heather Arbiter]

Useful on any board tbh

[Marcelo Lopez]

This shouldn't have to require purchasing a plugin for.

[Patrick Cummins]

Yes please!  This seems like it should be a simple change in the 'board/card' configuration.

[scott.lake]

It's good to know I wasn't crazy.  When I made this suggestion, I had only been using Jira for a few months, but had been up to that time, and even since, confused as to why the code can prevent me from moving a card but not visually show me why I can't move a card.

[scott.lake]

@Laurent Petit @Patrick Cummins @Marcelo Lopez @Heather Arbiter Here is what I wrote in the 'visualize blocked issues' discussion, which shows as being 'solved' - which is a bit of a cruel joke if you ask me (nobody is asking):

As I use Jira and other Atlassian tools - it seems to me there is a general paradigm that the overall solution from the developers is that JQL is the answer.  I'm sorry, this is a paradigm that SOME users simply do not come to your suite with.  I am a relatively new user (about 10 months in)

Some of us come from a more traditional project management background and not an agile development background.  Blocked and blocking is simply path setup and analysis that nearly every traditional project management tool on the market has a much simpler (and more calendar focused) view and modus that is visual in nature.  In the really old days, where people only had Gantt charts, they still showed blocking with drawn in lines.

In MS Project you can create 'issues' on the network diagram, and then visually connect them together instead of memorizing their id numbers and hard coding it.

Searching - so much simpler in other tools where search is already context sensitive instead of requiring writing a line of JQL code to get the answer.

There would be a massive benefit to users like me (and I believe others that expect more visual manipulation of Jira) to have a mode of Jira that is decidedly more visual in nature.  

I think the developers could build this on top of the existing modus of Jira without disturbing a single existing feature of Jira, but give a much more user friendly way to establish blocking/blocked by relationships.

What also would be excellent would be a visual report to show 'critical path' blocking of all issues in the blocking chain.  This could get leaders to act more quickly to show them in one view if they don't handle the upstream blocking, their desired end goal that they really care about simply will not happen.  'Right to left' project planning and visualization.

[Marcelo Lopez]

@scott.lake You'll get no qualms from me there. As I've worked with Jira off and on for over a decade (it's longer, I won't elaborate as to just how long I've carried this yoke in one form or another), I've developed a pretty strong sense of where Atlassian has miss-stepped with regards to supporting both agile and non-agile (in various forms). 

This idea of not being able to visualize dependencies (blockers or formal ordering of "DOING->Done") yet permitting people working in said environment to establish those connections is (and this is just my opinion) a big gap, customer experience-wise.

For the past several years Atlassian has stated they've been heavily investing in making the customer experience better, and aside from purchasing other parties (AgileCraft) products meant to work with Jira, I'm not sure I can see where they've done so.

The fact that ScriptRunner is still a separate product is itself a testament to the fact that Atlassian continues to misstep. 

In the early days, users of Jira may have been ok with "developing" plugins to connect to the core of Jira and extends it's functionality. Nowadays, for what Jira costs to own and operate, it ought to be looking to make more of that core accessible for what its current customers actually do. 

The "tried and true" answer from Atlassian cannot continue to be "go look at XYZ plugin" for every little thing. Most things people are asking for today are NOT as esoteric as they might've been 10 years ago, and comprise the core of what its competitors are offering today.

RallyDev at one time might've been a competitor for Jira, but it failed in capitalizing on the what the needs of folks really were (probably by trying to "chase the S_Fe dragon" and failing), others have learned from that and adapted, it's high time Atlassian did the same.

[Dave Rosenlund _Tempo_]

All: It may help think of Jira as a platform that can be extended to meet a wide variety of needs -- that's how I think of the way Atlassian crafted Jira.  It can do many things, and help users address many use cases, but it does do everything for everyone.  

IMO if Atlassian were hearing this request from hundreds or thousands of customers it would already be done -- the fact that it's not been done probably means there aren't enough requests. In fact, only 40 ppl have voted for this feature. :( 

See: 

1. https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWSERVER-4452?jql=text%20~%20%22dependencies%20kanban%22%20ORDER%20BY%20updated%20desc
   
   AND
   
   
2. https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWSERVER-11218 

I encourage everyone here (and hopefully more) to vote for it. But recognize that 50 or 60 votes are a long way away from thousands. ;) 

Meanwhile, there's the Atlassian Marketplace where many people look to "plug the gaps" — as you/they see it :)  

Try: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?product=jira&query=visualize%20dependencies

You'll see a number of Jira apps that -- you guessed it -- add Gantt capabilities to Jira.

It's okay to wait for this to come to Jira Kanban boards out-of-box or course, but if that's your goal I suggest adding "get out the vote."  

Full disclosure:  The company I work for makes one of the Gantt solutions that will show up on the "visualize jira dependencies" search -- Structure.Gantt.

Hope this helps,

-dave 

[Marcelo Lopez]

@Dave Rosenlund _Tempo_ The fact that there are "only" 40 people writing this tells me several things. That the sample size of potential benefit to customers is probably quite larger. Consider that the number of people who will actually engage Atlassians community threads like this is quite a small sample set from the general population of Atlassian users or customers.

That's one thing. Then taking into consideration that the vast majority of users aren't even THINKING about things like would even be possible, further reduces the number of folks who might otherwise be involved or engaged in a discussion like this.

Given THAT, it tells me that if the logic you're applying is the same (or similar logic) that Atlassian is applying to how it services its customer base, then...it's out of touch with what's really needed in the market.

[Dave Rosenlund _Tempo_]

I hear you, @Marcelo Lopez. And I'm sure Atlassian does extrapolate the number of votes *up* when making their decisions.

My point was that if the number of visible votes for this feature is 40 (today), and 50 or 60 as a result of this discussion, you still have to compare that to requests that already have hundreds or thousands of votes (they get "extrapolated up" too after all).

And, my point was "why wait?"  Atlassian has worked to cultivate a rich ecosystem of app vendors that see these voids too — and fill them with new apps for Jira. 

Just like we add apps to our phones (bc iOS or Android doesn't have everything we want; or Salesforce.com users buy apps from the Salesforce AppExchange).  

In this particular example, there are many ways to get what you need — right now. Today.

Or, you can wait, and hope :) 

[scott.lake]

@Dave Rosenlund _Tempo_ ....or you work for a company that forces you to the environment, but you have zero capability, authority, or capacity to get the company to buy the apps for the environment.  Hence why I ask for it in the core function.

[Dave Rosenlund _Tempo_]

Ouch! That's too, bad @scott.lake :(  I'm not sure what to say about that. (Stiff upper lip, chest out, hang in there?)  Not much help, I know.  

[scott.lake]

This is the situation I find myself in.  Use Atlassian to shoe-horn traditional milestone based project management into an agile mindset, but in a corporate/enterprise environment where central IT decides what applications and software purchases are appropriate for all users.  Hundreds of thousands of employees globally.  A somewhat small sub-set of maybe 10,000 using Atlassian, and a much bigger pile using the whole Polarion suite on both ALM and PLM.  The company just made a massive change-over to Office 365, and honestly I think Confluence use is going to drop precipitously in our small corner of this massive company, because of that.  I USED to work for a 250 person company and I used cloud based solutions of my own choosing, as a product line manager:  Highrise for contact management, Trello for task management for trade shows and small production runs, etc.  But now I work for a monolith - and I have no choice about what I use.  I imagine I'm not alone.  But I am probably out of the ordinary in that I know a bit about agile development, and I know that one of the aspects of the whole agile mindset is being more agile to shifts and changes and blips in customer features, and to release when something useful to the customer is available.  So I'm appealing directly to the core provider.

The 'add features through plugins' mindset pretty much shuts off corporate/enterprise users that cannot make their own software changes, have no administrative rights on their machines, etc.

I'm perhaps out of the ordinary also in that I will bother to make the appeal.  I would guess most corporate users just don't bother.  We live in that gray world where you do what you are told and don't rock the boat.  For the most part....

[scott.lake]

@Dave Rosenlund _Tempo_ , Here's a reply that comes to mind with your response that usefulness is demonstrated only by direct requests from customers:

1.  1994 Dodge Ram - read how that came to market.  Well documented in Gutz by Bob Lutz.  All trucks eventually were styled that way for 25 years following.  Keep in mind that each of Ford and General Motors truck businesses are Fortune 100 companies in their own right, if their economies were taken into account apart from their parent companies.  Dodge may have joined that club as part of the 1994 radical shift in styling.

2.  iPhone - touchscreens for phones are stupid, was the original reaction.

3.  WSYWIG UI experiences in general (Jobs saw it and saw the future, Xerox PARC invented it and did not)

4.  Mice as input devices. (Jobs saw it and saw the future, Xerox PARC invented it and did not)

I'm just saying that Atlassian could OWN both Agile as well as traditional project management with a more visual experience and input method for dependencies, with a right to left planning modus added to their agile-focused modus.  Writing JQL does not come naturally to those that don't code as part of their daily routine - and I would guess there are more and more folks like me that are being expected to use Agile PD, in a more traditional PD world where there's hardware and things you build and blow up and have to plan for IN TIME.  It's absolutely stupid that you have to memorize ID numbers to plan dependencies in Jira.  Connect the dots.  Traditional project management folks have been doing it for well over 70 years.  But you know this.  There was enough of a market for you to be employed by a company that supposedly provides that as an add-on to Atlassian ALM.

[Dave Rosenlund _Tempo_]

Those are great examples, Scott.  We can disagree (maybe we don't) about Atlassian and innovation (personally, I see a lot of innovation coming from them).

My comment was about this particular enhancement request -- and how to add your voice to JSWSERVER-11218  (I was trying to help).

And, what you might want to do in the meantime (or not).  

The decision, of course, is yours.  

[scott.lake]

I did just add my voice in there - thanks for the link.

@Marcelo Lopez @Patrick Cummins @Heather Arbiter @Laurent Petit  add your voice to the actual potential feature add here:   JSWSERVER-11218 

[Sebastián Pardo]

It will be extremely useful!