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0 pointsvictorwu9y ago0 comments

Hey! I am a product manager over at GitLab.

Thanks for bringing up this very relevant discussion. We definitely recognize the shortcomings and we are working hard to improve in these areas. GitLab started out as a software management tool, similar to what you describe. But we are definitely looking to expand in multiple directions. One of them is definitely to make it a tool that is useful beyond just engineers. One of our major thrusts in this area is issue boards. We are considering who the individuals are in a large enterprise that would be interested in issue boards. And we can't solve every use case right away. So we are starting with personas like engineering managers, product managers, and designers. These are folks that may not be very technical, but still are important in the product development flow in a large organization. See this as an example: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/24686

We definitely have our eye to expand beyond these use cases. So we anticipate getting into areas like road mapping, Gantt charts / swim lanes, etc. But again, we work iteratively at GitLab, so our very first stab in this area is burn down charts to get feedback on how a software iteration is performing. And then we build on that to bigger scopes like roadmaps for business managers, etc. See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/91 for burn down charts.

In addition, we recognize the rich nature of teams and the multi-faceted of different roles in an organization. For lack of better term, we've called it "team-centered collaboration" in this issue, we start the discussion that we want to go beyond just software-first projects: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/1295

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i3869y ago

How do you feel about project management in Gitlab now that Atlassian has acquired Trello?

victorwuOP9y ago

There's lots to consider and analyze here. But one area of note is that JIRA is already used by many enterprises. But many folks find that despite it's many powerful features, the complexity is crippling. There's a lot to configure. And it's not an easy app to use with all that complexity. This is in stark contrast to Trello, which is essentially a digital agile board. (JIRA has an agile board too, as one of it's many plug and play features.) So if all you need is a simple board and you don't want the heft of JIRA, Trello is great. And now Atlassian can offer that.

The takeaway here is that project management and software tools are inherently complicated by what they have to solve. There's so many different ways to build software and run projects. How do you create the tools to support those workflows so that a new user is not crippled by the complexity? At least in GitLab we are iterating quickly with small improvements every month. But we also have a UX team to design intuitive interfaces and workflows that make sense. We dogfood GitLab ourselves so we understand the pain points (and the complexities!). And of course we develop out in the open to solicit that constant user feedback. As GitLab further matures and we add more features, we are hyper aware that we do not build another JIRA. There is so much configurability and complexity there. It's very heavy. So are iterating quickly, but carefully.

sytse9y ago

Atlassian now has two products that do the same thing. Jira for the complex cases and Trello for the simple ones.

At GitLab we'll work very hard try to have on product that is pleasant to use for simple cases but still allows you to handle the complex ones.

This is a huge UX challenge but it will allow our users to use a single product for all their needs, so they don't have to move projects between tools when they 'graduate' to the complex one. And it will allow us to ship more features in the single product we work on.

i3869y ago

I look forward to seeing that. Many product teams have tried that and failed miserably.

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i3869y ago

How do you feel about project management in Gitlab now that Atlassian has acquired Trello?

victorwuOP9y ago

sytse9y ago

Atlassian now has two products that do the same thing. Jira for the complex cases and Trello for the simple ones.

At GitLab we'll work very hard try to have on product that is pleasant to use for simple cases but still allows you to handle the complex ones.

i3869y ago

I look forward to seeing that. Many product teams have tried that and failed miserably.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse