Scope
- Feature Life Cycle Management includes features being subject to a Planning Cycle:
- new features are planned and specified before being
New Features might be - developed and included in
next Releases - these Features need to be planned- future releases.
- having passed the Planning Cycle new features are subjec to a Development Cycle.
- This article describes our handling this situation and its mapping with the states in JIRA.
- Further resources for life cycle management
Life Cycle
Planned features will pass through the following states:
...
the begin-of-life cylce with the following status before a decision is taken whether they will be developed or not:
- A feature or bug has been described and assignedadded but might not yet be assigned to any developer or release.
- Open issues are assigned a release and are worked on in the course of this release.
- The next step will be to decide, whether the feature is a Known Issue or it has to be Clarified.
Known Issue
- There is no feature to discuss
- ...
Clarify
- The feature has to be first discussed before a further state is decided
- The feature can be then.
Dismissed or Accepted
- Feature removal announcements will be included with each release if applicable.
- Unsupported features may be completely removed from future releases.
Deferred (from Accepted)
Example
- CLARIFY the feature, i.e. to collect requirements and to decide on future development.
- The feature or bug has to be specified before any further status is assigned. This includes to check the validity of requirements and the feasibility.
- Issues for clarification are assigned a release and are worked on in the course of this release.
- Users are invited to vote for the feature and to comment by adding use cases and requirements that help to specify the feature.
- Subsequent to clarification the feature will then be ACCEPTED or DEFERRED for development, or it will be DISMISSED or classified as KNOWN ISSUE without further action.
Status |
---|
colour | Green |
---|
title | KNOWN ISSUE |
---|
|
- The feature or bug is classified as a known issue, i.e. as an inconvenience with a valid workaround available, and will by purpose not be changed.
- Known issues are not assigned a release.
- Being a known issue is an end status for a feature, therefore no further action will be taken.
- The issue is assigned one of the resolutions
- the feature works as designed (resolution:
works as designed
). - the issue not being fixed (resolution:
won't fix
).
Status |
---|
| |
---|
colour | Green |
---|
title | DISMISSED |
---|
|
- The feature or bug is dismissed, e.g. due to architectural constraints or invalid requirements. The feature is not considered for future development.
- Dismissed Issues are assigned a release and are worked on in the course of this release.
- Being dismissed is an end status for a feature, therefore no further action will be taken.
- The issue is assigned one of the resolutions:
- the feature works as designed (resolution:
works as designed
). - the issue is caused by misconfiguration or misapprehension of the underlying functionality (resolution:
bogus
). - the issue not being fixed (resolution:
won't fix
). - the issue duplicating an issue and being resolved with that issue (resolution:
duplicate
) - the feature requirements being incomplete (resolution:
incomplete
). - the bug cannot be reproduced (resolution:
cannot reproduce
).
Status |
---|
| |
---|
colour | Yellow |
---|
title | ACCEPTED |
---|
|
- The feature or bug includes valid requirements and is accepted for development with the assigned release.
- Subsequently the feature will proceed through the Development Cycle, see Release Policy - Development Cycle.
- The feature will be considered for development in a future release.
- However, the feature is not assigned to a release. Instead, the feature is deferred for later consideration.
- The issue has no resolution assigned (resolution:
Unresolved
). Therefore the issue can be voted by the users in order for the company to prioritize these issues for future releases - Lifecycle
- A feature is announced as being deprecated with release 1.8:
- This feature will still be included in all maintenance releases1.8.1, 1.8.2 etc.
- This feature will then be announced as being unsupported from release 1.9:
- This feature will still be included in all maintenance releases 1.9.1, 1.9.2 etc.
- Support will not be provided if an unsupported feature should break in a release 1.9 or later
- This feature may be removed in a subsequent release such as 1.10 or later.
- Please note:
- The period between releases will usually be around three months.
This means that you will have about six months to modify your configuration and to upgrade to replacement features.