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What is a project roadmap?

 It's a rough plan of upcoming releases and what changes they'll contain.  Those changes may be new features, or bug fixes, or behind-the-scenes improvements.

How are Thalia versions planned? What determines which changes are in a release? 


We may want to add a new feature, especially one users have been asking for.  Sometimes a new feature requires other changes. We might make those changes in one release and add the new feature in a later one.

When planning each release, we include a set of bugs to fix.  We prioritize bugs based on its impact on the user; the worst bugs go to the head of the line.  If a bug is discovered
during testing, it may take precedence and bump other planned work to a later release. Sometimes a bugfix is trivial, and a developer will do it in the course of other changes.

Thalia will be used by other MIT services, such as Stellar.  We implement some features based on the downstream service's needs and schedule.   

There are three programmers behind Thalia's wizardry, each with a specialty. It may seem like something less urgent is included in a release while something more urgent was deferred. This may be because the developer who would make the change is already fully scheduled for a release.

Finally, project plans may be affected by vendors. Thalia uses some third-party software to power storage. We may incorporate a vendor's  software updates in a release, or defer a feature until a later release of the vendor's software.

In short, the plan changes as development and testing takes place.  We base releases off of the plan, but adapt to respond as needs and circumstance arise.

The roadmap is not a commitment.  If there's a feature or fix you urgently need, please contact us.  We take customer needs into account as we plan, and we need to hear from you. 

RELEASES 

What's a Sprint? 


When we plan a new version, we divide the work up into chunks.  A sprint is one chunk of work.  Each sprint lasts about six weeks. This allows us to release changes in small, controlled batches.  As a result, the releases are easier to test and more stable.  Customers can use new features as soon as they're done, instead of waiting until next semester.

RELEASES 

CURRENT RELEASE - Thalia 1.0

The current release is Thalia version 1.0. It represents the work done in Sprint 5, and will be released on April 2nd. It includes many bug fixes, some initial improvements based on feedback from usability testing, improved help section, and will soon also make available Quickstart video help.

Upcoming Release Schedule

JELLYFISH (Sprint 6a)
April 30th

  • Key customers:
    • PSB: customizations
    • OCW: pilot
  • PSB shopping cart
  • Bulk import to support free-form tags

STINGRAY (Sprint 6b)
June 16th

  • Paging
  • Research and design Moira groups integration
  • Keyboard support
  • Begin redesign exploration, deeper usability follow-up

ANEMONE (Sprint 7)
September 15th

  • Definite:
    • Redesign implementation (based on what we come up with in sprint 6)
    • Moira groups implementation
    • Monitoring tools (by our self if necessary, ops if they can)
    • Unicode support
  • Maybe:
    • Open Source:
    • Licensing stuff: find out what it should be
    • Cleaning up code: take all source on clean machine, see if instructions are clear and they can build it
  • Test impact of using community alfresco
  • Refactor front-end code

STARFISH (Sprint 8)
December 8th

  • Key customers:
    • OCW public release
    • Stellar release
  • Definite:
    • Touchstone to support external users (available September)
    • Skinning:
      • ability to embed Thalia in Stellar & PSB
      • color scheme customization?
      • Back/home button takes you to home application
    • Slideshows 1.0
      • Save As Slideshow from album, search results, library
    • Federated searching: Rotch Library at least
  • Maybe:
    • Annotations
    • Workflow (need to define what this means for customers requesting it)
    • Expanded federated searching

OCTOPUS:
Ops stuff, parallel track with our dev work

  • SAN will arrive end of december




Past Releases

Sprint 3 - release planned for 12/18/07


Overhauled navigator UI

Alfresco clustering (may move to Sprint 4)


Current release - Sprint 4 Changes - release planned 1/28/08

Implement new access control  rules

Finish metadata changes

Add freeform  tags

Downloadable slide show

XML schema research

Make bulk upload more usable

Reduce the bug list 

Next version - to be named - Sprint 1 development starts 2/1/08

Next Version Features:
General release to DLCs
Finalize the supporting processes that make a general release possible (customer support, operations, etc.) and ensure a good customer experience
Usability testing - scheduled 1/29 and 1/30, contact boell@mit.edu

Incorporating results of usability testing
Stellar 2.0 backend integration - not visible to end users, but will be used behind the scenes in Fall Stellar release.
Moira groups integration
CSS review of documentation
Incorporating CSS documentation recommendations
more Open Source  prep ( add official legal language into source files, confirm configuration is general, not MIT specific )
meet with Training again; determine our next steps together

 Scheduled for Sprint 1: TBD, need to estimate task times

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