How to break down sections in fogbugz, areas?

Question

Hi,

I have a web application I want to build, how should I manage all my tasks with fogbugz.

If I want to list all the tasks I have on a page by page basis, should I use areas for that? I also want to break it down to modules, again I use areas?

example:

• Users
  • add user
  • delete user
  • assign permissions/roles to a user

or if it do in on a page basis the list would look different.

Answer 1

Over time I've found that it's a waste of effort trying to rigidly structure your cases by anything other than Project and responsibility (Area).

Just get the cases into FogBugz under the right project and area with a good title.

So, the Project is whatever the product or business project is that you're working on.

The areas should be things like UI, Code, Docs, Data Migration, the kinds of things that people have different responsibilities and/or abilities in.

Then title your cases for easy management and searching, keeping the scope of the case to a few hours if possible, certainly no more than a couple of days.

So, from your example it could be as simple as...

• Add Role
• View Role
• Update Role
• Delete Role?
• List Roles
• Add User
• View User
• Update User
• Delete User
• List Users
• Add dependency checks to delete role.

To be honest, even the above is probably a little over-board, you'd probably get away with:

• User Role add/view/update/delete/list
• User add/view/update/delete/list

The simpler you make it, and more trust you put in your devs, the less hampered your devs will feel and more likely to just get on with it.

Answer 2

Users can filter by cases assigned to them, so they can always view their own queue.

Lots of different areas will just create unneeded complexity - you just don't need that level of breakdown.

Bear in mind that you should never have large numbers of active cases, and you don't need lots of categorisation for short lists.

I find that the best use of the area flag is to group work into a queue across more than one developer. Then you get a queue anyone can quickly view.

For instance you might have a "Product planning" area for feature ideas that you haven't decided to do yet. In a large team you might assign an area for each sub-team, so each line manager could view their queue on its own.

We have one large and complex project that's been using Fogbugz for 4 years and we've never needed more than 5 areas. If we'd split areas the way that you suggest here we would now have hundreds of them.