Dear community,
The subject I wish to discuss is somewhat complex, but I believe it would be beneficial for the SWSD especially to enhance the Tasks module.
Currently, in my opinion, the module does not deliver the best possible user experience and features.
As an IT department with various sub-teams organized by a service catalogue, we manage numerous requests from our customers. It becomes challenging to not only set priorities but also plan each team member’s tasks and their sequence. This issue is compounded when high-priority tasks unexpectedly arise, necessitating the rescheduling of plans and communication of changes to all stakeholders.
Presently, if you assign a task (created within a request or incident) to another individual, it isn’t feasible to manage that task as a sub-incident or sub-request with its own states, time tracking, statistics, etc. These details are only available at the incident/request level.
Ideally, an integrated tool within SWSD would function like a production fine planning system, managing the team's capacity (ITIL Capacity and performance management) in terms of skills and availability, including the scheduling of tasks. Such a tool should be capable of automatically rescheduling any un-started tasks when a higher priority task arises.
For instance, consider the BI team on day 0:
Request 1: high priority, started, due date communicated to requester
Request 2: high priority, not started, due date communicated to requester
Request 3: medium priority, not started, due date communicated to requester
Request 4: low priority, not started, due date communicated to requester
On day 1, a new request comes in, and the team decides that requests from 2 to 4 need to be rescheduled. The tool should recalculate automatically the new due dates for requests 2, 3, and 4, notifying the requester about the changes.
A Gantt view would also be highly appreciated.
Here’s how the BI team might look on day 1:
Request 1: high priority, started, due date communicated to requester
Request 5: high priority, not started, due date communicated to requester
Request 2: high priority, not started, due date communicated to requester
Request 3: medium priority, not started, due date communicated to requester
Request 4: low priority, not started, due date communicated to requester
I understand this sounds akin to an Agile tool, but it should integrate detailed planning capabilities.
What are your thoughts? Could this feature be valuable within SWSD?
If not, are there any existing tools that provide similar functionality?
Best regards
