'If you can’t share your problems, group them'
Not strictly a problem, more a workflow tool that might help...
One thing I’ve learned working alone on a large personal project is ‘My problems are no longer team-shared. I need to work them out myself’. Daunting for someone used to An agile team with lots of ears and meetings!
A core feature of my application is it allows multiple developers to change the same text/code in real-time. True real time remote collaboration is the goal.
For in-office, we have version control, but not close to real-time enough for a remote, separately-located team. Videoconf is a distraction to be used sparingly; Zoom is for planning work, actual work is different.
Good idea perhaps, but when inserting the real-time feature set, I hit serious problems;
- What if I am editing something and someone else deletes it?
- What if they delete a big chunk of text that means I lose my scroll position?
- What if I don’t agree with an edit someone else is making?
- What if their edits kill the sense of my edits?
- What if I want to converse with the other developer and we don’t share the same line numbers anymore?
- etc
I had 20 separate problems for multi-user real-time text editing. I thought I needed a second opinion, but then out of curiosity, I just grouped the problems by type. I ended up with;
- Other user's interactions that change my edit position.
- Continuous, real time agreement.
- How to share/discuss conflicting solutions in-system without need for a meeting.
Bingo. Those groupings were my actual problems, and only 2 were even relevant by the end! Workable, re-wireframed, moved forward.
Group your problems by type.
The groupings are your core problems.
They are often your only problems.
(also first post, be gentle ;)
