Writing good tickets (and projects) is salesmanship

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Four pieces of paper: one flat, one crumpled, one roughly folded, and one an origami paper crane

[ENG-7566] Refactor our fraglesnitz model to split out its roles into separate modules

Nobody cares. This will get put off forever.

[ENG-7566] Split razzmatazz off fraglesnitz, enabling us to build snazzyfleep

This at least has some justification. We want snazzyfleep.

[ENG-7566] Initial Snazzyfleep functionality [requires fraglesnitz refactoring]

This is the one that gets scheduled and started. It has a clear, immediate benefit.

But these are all the same job!

Yup. But…

The first one is written like a chore, with no clear benefit.

The second is written like a technical exercise with a nice side-effect.

The third is written like a business opportunity.

Guess which one is easiest to justify?

Ctrl+Shift will be off tomorrow for US election day (and perhaps longer if things get really ugly out there). If you’re based here in the states, and you haven’t already voted, go vote. And setting aside the pretense of anything being “not political”, Donald Trump is unfit to lead, in particular because he deliberately wants to hurt lots of people, some for power, some for revenge, and some seemingly just for fun. Vote against him.

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