Revolutionizing Agile Workflows - How GitHub Projects Empower Open Source Development
Author: Kris Coleman
At TestifySec, we are on a mission to bring secure software to the masses through our new platform, Judge. We are building Judge around our open source supply chain security software, Witness and Archivista, to empower everyone to leverage their capabilities. As we grow and strive to achieve our goals, collaboration and empowerment are at the core of our company culture. Recently, we embarked on a journey to optimize our work processes around our Open Source business model. In this blog post, we'll share how GitHub Projects, along with its powerful integrations and automations, has revolutionized the way we work and enabled us to deliver high-quality features faster than ever before.
Streamlining Agile Workflows: From Clunky Solutions to GitHub Projects
As an agile team, we understand that choosing the right tool to track our work is crucial. Our requirements called for something that would help us track work both privately and publically, all in one space and on one board. We evaluated various options, including the tried and true but often bloated solutions like Jira, as well as trendy alternatives like Monday.com or Teamwork.com. However, we sought a solution that not only aligned with our rapid delivery goals but also prioritized our team's well-being and efficiency. We started looking at Github Projects.
Empowerment through Automation
At TestifySec, we firmly believe that automation is the key to unlocking our team's full potential. By leveraging GitHub Projects in tandem with GitHub for our codebase, we discovered a treasure trove of built-in automation features that perfectly complemented our vision. With GitHub Projects, we experienced the seamless integration of our work processes. When we create a pull request (PR) for ongoing tasks, GitHub Projects automatically transitions the work to the review phase. Once the PR is successfully merged into our main branch, the corresponding issue is automatically closed and moved to the "Done" column. This automation not only saved us valuable time but also ensured a smooth transition from development to deployment, aligning perfectly with our trunk-based development and continuous delivery strategies.
Unleashing the Power of Customization
GitHub Projects empowered us to tailor our work tracking to suit our unique needs. We could create multiple views to manage different work streams, such as Platform Product Planning and the Engineering Team's Iteration Planning, all in one centralized place. This customization allowed stakeholders and team members to collaborate effectively, providing enhanced clarity and fostering smoother communication.
Empowering Open Source Companies with a Mix of Private and Public Repos
Many of our issues today are internal and private, as we are working hard on building our platform. Still, we do have users that create issues in our public repos, and we need to track those easily, too. Github Projects can mix issues from our private repos and our public repos, seamlessly. So when we work, it's all there.
Room for Improvement and Future Development
While GitHub Projects has significantly enhanced our workflow, we believe there is always room for improvement. Here are a few areas where we envision future developments:
- Expanding No-Code Workflow Automations: While GitHub Projects offers robust automation options, we'd love to see more no-code workflow automations, empowering us to streamline processes without relying on complex custom tooling.
- Enhanced Reporting Tools: Although GitHub Projects provides helpful reporting features, we feel that additional reporting tools and reports tailored to our specific needs would further elevate our tracking and analysis capabilities.
- Integration of Issue Templates: While we have implemented issue templates for different types of work, we noticed that GitHub Projects does not automatically apply these templates when adding issues through project views. We hope to see this functionality integrated in future updates.
Join TestifySec and Unleash Your Potential
At TestifySec, we're building an exceptional product team to drive our groundbreaking supply chain security platform. If you're passionate about working in an exciting environment, developing innovative solutions, and making a significant impact, we invite you to join us! Come be a part of our empowered culture and help us shape the future of secure software.
Conclusion
GitHub Projects has revolutionized the way our agile product team at TestifySec works. Through its seamless integrations, automation capabilities, and customizable views, we have streamlined our workflows, improved collaboration, and accelerated our delivery of innovative features. As we continue to grow, we remain committed to enhancing our processes and driving the evolution of secure software. Join us at TestifySec and become a catalyst for change in the world of supply chain security!