Tasktop Blog

Today’s releases of Tasktop Pro 1.6 and Eclipse Mylyn 3.3 represent a major step forward in the maturation of the task-focused interface. Mylyn has become the de facto framework for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) integrations for Eclipse with an ecosystem that now includes 42 connectors. The Mylyn Connector Discovery mechanism that was released with Eclipse 3.5 Galileo makes it trivial to find and install connectors, helping users and encouraging the number of integrations to grow. The Tasktop Certified connector program has been a key enabler for enterprise adoption of Mylyn by ensuring the quality and compatibility of integrations that exist outside of the Eclipse Mylyn project. We are not done yet. But between the evolution of the framework, the size of the integration ecosystem, and the new features that we’re announcing today, I’m happy to say that support for task management has been established as the critical link between the ALM systems and the IDE.

The goal of the Mylyn project is to provide a task management framework and reference implementations for open source ALM technologies. Tasktop’s goal is to extend the reach of the productivity benefits of Mylyn to as many developers as possible, by integrating with commercial ALM systems and providing additional task-focused collaboration facilities. The very broad adoption of our technology is riding on the wave of the spread of Agile and Lean development processes, which make tasks a more explicit part of the development process. We have seen significant innovation around Agile ALM tool support from companies such as Atlassian, CollabNet, Danube, IBM, Microsoft, Rally and ThoughtWorks Studios. We’re continuing to see increasing usage of open source solutions like Bugzilla, Mantis and Trac. And with the input of broad enterprise adoptions of Tasktop Pro, such as Nokia’s, we have tailored this new task management layer of the IDE to make it easy for organizations adopting Agile to make the most of their ALM tools and get the dramatic productivity benefits of task-focused collaboration.

 
The Agile ALM Communication Disconnect

To realize the promised returns of an agile approach to development, developers must embrace the agile tool support they are using as their hub for communication and collaboration around code. However, developers can be resistant to adopting a tool that is not integrated with their working environment. Developers are all already experiencing a high level of overload, and agile tools introduce yet another inbox to track. The result is an anti-pattern of stories, subtasks and status being updated at the end of a sprint or release instead of as the changes happen. Or trying to figure out how much time was spent on a task two weeks ago when submitting timesheets.

This manual approach to ALM updates challenges the benefits of agile, because it results in ongoing friction for developers and a lack of useful visibility for product owners and management. Further developer frustration can occur when expectations that were assumed to be clear are not met. As developers, we want priorities to be clear and explicit and progress to be evident, since it makes it much easier to get things done, and to say “no” when yet another feature or enhancement is suggested. Managers need progress and priorities to be explicit in order to steer the product and features to meet users’ needs. To get the full benefits of agile, a new tool automation layer is needed to connect user stories and requirements at the project management level with the delivery happening at the developer level. We call this the “task management” layer of the agile development process.

 
Introducing the Agile Task Management Layer

This ALM communication disconnect is addressed by the agile task management layer in the development tool stack. The role of this layer is to organize work around tasks that represent actual development activity, automatically link related artifacts to tasks, and provide automation for updating ALM systems for real-time project visibility.

Within this layer, Mylyn provides the task management APIs that integrate the IDE with the various ALM systems in play. Tasktop and Mylyn connectors provide the integrations with a team’s tools for change management, source code configuration management, build and release management, and test and quality management. Tasktop 1.6 completes the layer by automating the linking and tracking of task across the very wide variety of commercial and open source ALM tools.

 
What’s new in Tasktop 1.6 and Mylyn 3.3?

Welcome Experience - Tasktop 1.6 includes a new welcome screen that introduces task-focused productivity features and settings step-by-step, making it easy to get started with the basics and then take advantage of Tasktop’s more advanced capabilities.

Task Federation – Teams with multiple ALM systems often find that tasks from one system depend on tasks in another. Tasktop 1.6 now supports linking across task repositories as well as importing and migration features, making it easy to manage tasks across ALM systems. For example, a user story in one system can be linked with defects in another.

Improved Time Tracking - New time charts and reports in Tasktop 1.6 take the pain out of time tracking by allowing developers to quickly review and adjust time spent on each task before submitting data to the team’s project management tools.

Full support for C/C++ – Mylyn 3.3 and Tasktop 1.6 now provide complete task-focused programming support is available for C/C++ developers using CDT. Code focusing was first implemented for Java, then extended to enterprise developers with focus for Spring Framework artifacts via the SpringSource Tool Suite, and as of this release is finally available to all developers using CDT.

In total, Mylyn 3.3 resolves 163 Bugzilla reports and includes 18 enhancements, see the Mylyn 3.3 New & Noteworthy. For more on Tasktop’s new capabilities, see the Tasktop 1.6 New & Noteworthy or download a free trial.

 
Close the ALM communication loop with Tasktop 1.6

Task federation, task context capture and to-the-minute time tracking mean that, as developers, we can easily indicate the task we are currently working, collaborate using the ALM tool instead of email, and convert a relevant email thread into a user story with a couple of clicks. Focusing and one-click multitasking across all ALM artifacts ensures that we activate tasks voluntarily, not because it was suggested that we do so. The privacy controls in the time tracking and context capture features streamline collaboration with management without loss of empowerment. And the fact that every task has a context associated with it provides long-term organization value, since it means that when we’re asked to fix a colleagues bug from six months ago, we get to start where they left off. By lining up project management’s needs for visibility with developer’s desire to deliver code without being overly encumbered by process, tool support for Agile task management takes the software development process to a new level of productivity and predictability.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Tasktop, Team. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.