WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:06.322 --> 00:00:12.502 Raphaël: Hey folks, and welcome to the small tech podcast by Ephemere Creative. 00:00:13.312 --> 00:00:14.102 I'm your host Raph. 00:00:14.422 --> 00:00:18.862 And today we're going to talk a little bit about how we organize our product 00:00:18.862 --> 00:00:21.072 development processes in ClickUp. 00:00:23.152 --> 00:00:27.712 So before we start, if you enjoy what we do, please like and subscribe 00:00:27.742 --> 00:00:32.286 on YouTube and give us a review on your podcast app of choice. 00:00:32.316 --> 00:00:35.796 We're a tiny team and every little bit helps. 00:00:36.296 --> 00:00:37.346 Before we get going. 00:00:37.346 --> 00:00:39.796 I promise this is not an ad for ClickUp. 00:00:40.106 --> 00:00:43.966 It's just, yeah, basically I want to talk about how we organize things. 00:00:43.966 --> 00:00:47.116 I'd love to get feedback on how we organize things. 00:00:47.176 --> 00:00:50.656 So if any of you have thoughts, that would be great. 00:00:50.996 --> 00:00:55.046 If anyone wants to join me and talk about this sort of stuff 00:00:55.076 --> 00:00:59.576 on the podcast, that would also be super helpful and really fun. 00:00:59.606 --> 00:01:00.266 Probably. 00:01:00.736 --> 00:01:03.196 So, yeah, let's, let's get right into it. 00:01:03.506 --> 00:01:07.286 I'm going to talk a bit about how we organize things. 00:01:08.156 --> 00:01:12.536 And we do that on a per product basis. 00:01:12.836 --> 00:01:16.476 Because we work with multiple, organizations with 00:01:16.476 --> 00:01:18.456 whom we develop products. 00:01:18.996 --> 00:01:21.966 And we also build our own stuff. 00:01:22.516 --> 00:01:26.476 So we use ClickUps feature called spaces to organize these. 00:01:27.106 --> 00:01:34.116 I had previously seen some information from some ClickUp consultants 00:01:34.326 --> 00:01:40.026 who suggested not doing that but I think they were not talking 00:01:40.026 --> 00:01:44.286 specifically about a product development or software development. 00:01:44.536 --> 00:01:49.816 They were talking about other types of work and I found one thing that 00:01:49.846 --> 00:01:56.146 is broken if you do not do this by space, which is that if you 00:01:56.176 --> 00:02:00.376 connect GitLab or GitHub to ClickUp. 00:02:01.026 --> 00:02:03.306 You have to assign access. 00:02:03.636 --> 00:02:07.116 To those repositories per space. 00:02:07.506 --> 00:02:12.576 So that might mean that you have people working on different projects. 00:02:12.876 --> 00:02:19.416 And, if they're all in one space, they'll just see every single repository, and 00:02:19.446 --> 00:02:23.646 the way that things are displayed, it could get really confusing. 00:02:23.646 --> 00:02:30.796 Like if you have an organization in GitHub that has a repository named web. 00:02:31.486 --> 00:02:36.646 And then you have another organization with a repository named web, and 00:02:36.646 --> 00:02:39.976 they're both available in that space. 00:02:40.666 --> 00:02:45.136 Now, you've got two things of the dropdown list called web, and it 00:02:45.136 --> 00:02:49.906 just felt messy to have all of these things in the same space. 00:02:50.416 --> 00:02:55.736 So that's why we decided to move to a per-space , thing for 00:02:55.736 --> 00:03:00.026 products, which I think also makes sense for the way we do things. 00:03:00.266 --> 00:03:04.186 The way we think of a product is very much like we're building a product, we're 00:03:04.186 --> 00:03:09.116 building a business with our partners or for ourselves, so there's a lot of 00:03:09.656 --> 00:03:15.506 stuff, you might want to group with your product development that I think if you're 00:03:15.506 --> 00:03:17.786 organizing that just in like a folder... 00:03:18.496 --> 00:03:19.426 It doesn't really work. 00:03:19.456 --> 00:03:21.106 There's just too much stuff. 00:03:21.616 --> 00:03:25.366 So we break things down in each space. 00:03:25.416 --> 00:03:28.536 We have a documentation folder. 00:03:29.046 --> 00:03:33.636 A product folder, which I haven't figured out if that's 00:03:33.636 --> 00:03:36.246 the right word for this stuff. 00:03:36.646 --> 00:03:42.706 And then another folder called dev sprints and for the scale of project 00:03:42.706 --> 00:03:48.596 that we tend to work on the only thing that really needs a full scale, like two 00:03:48.596 --> 00:03:51.896 week fully loaded sprints is development. 00:03:51.966 --> 00:03:53.136 All the other stuff. 00:03:53.246 --> 00:04:00.816 Is light enough that it doesn't need a full two weeks sprints, to address. 00:04:01.316 --> 00:04:04.586 So inside the documentation folder. 00:04:05.006 --> 00:04:09.446 That's where we put everything that is a standalone document. 00:04:09.656 --> 00:04:15.116 Something that doesn't relate to a specific task or card in other 00:04:15.386 --> 00:04:17.666 lists and other parts of the space. 00:04:17.996 --> 00:04:21.176 These are things that you just want to read as you get started 00:04:21.176 --> 00:04:22.406 with a project, for example. 00:04:22.406 --> 00:04:24.326 So it might be onboarding materials... 00:04:24.556 --> 00:04:27.826 explaining to a developer like this is the context, this is 00:04:27.826 --> 00:04:29.236 the type of tech we're using. 00:04:29.266 --> 00:04:32.236 This is why we made those decisions about that tech. 00:04:32.946 --> 00:04:38.706 It might be things about, our design system, that we're using a particular 00:04:38.706 --> 00:04:41.906 framework, maybe it's even design assets. 00:04:41.936 --> 00:04:43.766 We might organize those things. 00:04:44.156 --> 00:04:45.836 In the documentation folder. 00:04:45.836 --> 00:04:51.746 So you can just, if you need to have an SVG of the logo, You can go find it there. 00:04:52.026 --> 00:04:55.956 If you need to know what colors we're using, you can go find them there. 00:04:56.136 --> 00:05:00.846 Of course, you'll probably find them in the designs themselves, but 00:05:00.846 --> 00:05:05.136 sometimes it's practical to just have like a nice list of assets that 00:05:05.136 --> 00:05:06.906 you can access when you need them. 00:05:07.206 --> 00:05:12.576 We'll also put things like documentation for larger features in there. 00:05:12.976 --> 00:05:18.982 It might be something like search which might in some cases be a very small and 00:05:18.982 --> 00:05:24.382 well-defined thing and other apps that can be really big and it might mean searching 00:05:24.382 --> 00:05:29.812 across different types of data and in different contexts, but you still might 00:05:29.812 --> 00:05:35.732 need like a unifying document to explain how we're going to do it how we're going 00:05:35.732 --> 00:05:40.122 to implement it technically, from a user perspective, like all of these things. 00:05:40.512 --> 00:05:43.092 Yeah, we kind of use that space that way. 00:05:43.392 --> 00:05:46.192 And so all of those things are our documents in ClickUp. 00:05:46.212 --> 00:05:50.532 And that's a thing that I find really practical in their platform is that you 00:05:50.532 --> 00:05:54.132 have documents and tasks side-by-side. 00:05:54.642 --> 00:06:00.972 And, personally, I find that I don't like how notion and Coda have 00:06:01.242 --> 00:06:04.242 lists of tasks inside documents. 00:06:04.572 --> 00:06:08.832 I like the in ClickUp there side by side, like a list is a list on its 00:06:08.832 --> 00:06:14.672 own and they have statuses, like a list of tasks has statuses can have 00:06:14.672 --> 00:06:18.722 sub tasks and all of those things that are separate from documents. 00:06:19.362 --> 00:06:20.802 You can mix and match them. 00:06:20.962 --> 00:06:26.972 Like you can do formatting, for your text in the same way that you might a document 00:06:27.242 --> 00:06:29.582 inside a task and you can also attach it. 00:06:29.972 --> 00:06:35.132 Document to a task and you can embed tasks in documents. 00:06:35.612 --> 00:06:40.682 But by default, they are these sort of two separate entities and it feels good to me. 00:06:41.482 --> 00:06:46.912 So, yeah, that's basically our documentation folder in a product space. 00:06:47.412 --> 00:06:54.222 Then we have this product folder, which we have a bunch of lists that I put together. 00:06:54.672 --> 00:06:58.302 That we often don't need all of them. 00:06:58.422 --> 00:07:04.182 So I'm going to skip some of the ones that we don't generally make use of. 00:07:04.812 --> 00:07:09.132 And talk about the ones that we do. 00:07:09.632 --> 00:07:13.712 So the roadmap one is I think really valuable. 00:07:13.802 --> 00:07:18.512 And so this is a sort of Kanban style board where we're 00:07:18.542 --> 00:07:20.132 grouping things by quarter. 00:07:20.312 --> 00:07:25.502 And we're saying like, yep, these are things that we'll do in Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. 00:07:26.192 --> 00:07:30.252 And they are bigger overarching, features, 00:07:30.552 --> 00:07:36.552 Then let's talk about our backlog and this might include, this includes everything. 00:07:36.582 --> 00:07:38.442 This is just all of this stuff. 00:07:38.532 --> 00:07:44.032 And if you're familiar with scrum, then this is our scrum backlog. 00:07:44.352 --> 00:07:47.652 And so it's bugs, that we need to fix. 00:07:47.712 --> 00:07:50.362 It's features that we need to build. 00:07:50.422 --> 00:07:54.212 It's just anything that might need to be developed but also things 00:07:54.212 --> 00:07:55.742 that might need to be designed. 00:07:55.742 --> 00:07:58.872 It's a mix of all the things and some of those things will need to 00:07:58.872 --> 00:08:03.202 be broken down but this is where everything gets shoved eventually. 00:08:03.772 --> 00:08:09.232 In there we use a process called rice, which I learned from, I think 00:08:09.232 --> 00:08:11.182 the Intercom blog at some point. 00:08:11.672 --> 00:08:13.442 Which I quite like. 00:08:13.442 --> 00:08:16.232 So it's reach impact confidence and effort. 00:08:16.982 --> 00:08:20.392 And, that's how we prioritize what we work on next. 00:08:20.872 --> 00:08:28.462 So if something needs design work, we will move that into a design list and, get that 00:08:28.462 --> 00:08:31.942 work done and just plop it into that task. 00:08:32.312 --> 00:08:35.282 We don't really split things up too much. 00:08:35.282 --> 00:08:36.842 So the task moves around. 00:08:37.152 --> 00:08:38.232 We're small enough. 00:08:38.232 --> 00:08:42.102 And the products that we build are small enough that it doesn't really make 00:08:42.102 --> 00:08:44.652 sense to split things up more than that. 00:08:44.992 --> 00:08:48.442 So then you might have a link to a Figma file or pen pot file 00:08:48.792 --> 00:08:54.852 in the task or sometimes just images depending on the context. 00:08:55.432 --> 00:09:03.332 And it'll go through UX and UI design and then once it's ready to be taken on by a 00:09:03.332 --> 00:09:07.562 developer, we'll move that into a sprint. 00:09:08.082 --> 00:09:11.202 So that brings us to our third folder, the sprint folder. 00:09:11.452 --> 00:09:15.922 We're small enough that our process can be, I think, simplified. 00:09:16.322 --> 00:09:19.592 But the gist of it is we do two weeks sprints. 00:09:20.262 --> 00:09:22.034 Sometimes it's a little loosey goosey. 00:09:22.424 --> 00:09:30.614 With every task a developer takes on, they will use the lovely ClickUp integration 00:09:30.614 --> 00:09:34.994 with either GitLab or GitHub depending on where we are working, which is 00:09:35.024 --> 00:09:42.304 dependent on the client and ClickUp will generate a nice branch name and it will 00:09:42.304 --> 00:09:47.144 automatically link as long as you have that integration set up for the space. 00:09:47.964 --> 00:09:52.254 You can then also create pull requests or merge requests depending on which 00:09:52.254 --> 00:09:56.614 platform you're using directly from ClickUp or again, you can use the 00:09:56.614 --> 00:09:58.124 naming conventions and ClickUp. 00:09:58.144 --> 00:10:01.204 We'll figure out how to bring those things in. 00:10:01.564 --> 00:10:07.694 We try to do all of our communication about a task in ClickUp because so much 00:10:07.694 --> 00:10:09.734 of the process happens there anyways. 00:10:09.734 --> 00:10:16.404 So it makes sense to have, most of the discussions in that context. 00:10:16.854 --> 00:10:25.434 We will do code reviews in the Git platform we are using, because of 00:10:25.434 --> 00:10:28.164 course it makes sense to comment on the code where the code is. 00:10:28.474 --> 00:10:31.534 Sometimes I think it would be kind of neat if you could do that as 00:10:31.534 --> 00:10:35.914 well in ClickUp, but that seems like it's it doesn't actually make sense. 00:10:36.254 --> 00:10:39.424 So there is a little bit of like splitting where you work. 00:10:39.734 --> 00:10:44.644 Which I guess isn't ideal but I think it makes sense in our context. 00:10:45.144 --> 00:10:48.474 And the final thing that we do, and this is something that we use 00:10:48.474 --> 00:10:50.964 to pay for an external tool to do. 00:10:51.114 --> 00:10:56.394 But it's great that we have this built into ClickUp, which is that for tasks 00:10:56.394 --> 00:10:59.854 that are, that, have a visual component. 00:10:59.854 --> 00:11:06.224 So if you're building UI stuff, then, the developers will record 00:11:06.224 --> 00:11:08.624 a video of the thing in action. 00:11:09.034 --> 00:11:12.824 Of course, depending on the context, we are still running things, in the 00:11:12.824 --> 00:11:16.454 browser or on a device to make sure that everything is working, but it's 00:11:16.454 --> 00:11:21.884 nice to just have a quick overview of what things look like and how they 00:11:21.884 --> 00:11:25.064 are working in an interactive context. 00:11:25.364 --> 00:11:30.344 So that if something is kind of off, you can just quickly say, Hey, that's not 00:11:30.344 --> 00:11:32.324 quite, we were what we were looking for. 00:11:32.544 --> 00:11:35.744 Maybe we can update this to change X, Y, or Z. 00:11:36.134 --> 00:11:40.784 We also use Vercel a lot more of these days and so we get those nice preview 00:11:40.784 --> 00:11:46.524 deployments, for every pull request or merge request, which is also very valuable 00:11:46.584 --> 00:11:51.594 to just be able to point someone to a URL and say, here is the functioning 00:11:52.014 --> 00:11:55.284 thing in the browser, go check it out. 00:11:55.784 --> 00:11:58.094 And yeah, that's basically our process. 00:11:58.194 --> 00:12:00.954 I think the key things to take out of that is if you're building multiple 00:12:00.954 --> 00:12:05.274 products, You should probably organize them in different spaces in ClickUp. 00:12:05.774 --> 00:12:10.334 You will want to use the GitHub or GitLab integrations. 00:12:10.584 --> 00:12:16.794 It's nice that you can have documents and tasks side by side and link between them. 00:12:17.294 --> 00:12:22.864 And you've got a nice sprint system with estimates and sprint points, 00:12:23.364 --> 00:12:27.734 and video recording, so you can see your features in action before 00:12:27.734 --> 00:12:30.134 they actually get to a browser. 00:12:30.634 --> 00:12:31.114 Alrighty. 00:12:31.144 --> 00:12:33.124 Well, thanks for listening folks. 00:12:33.624 --> 00:12:38.884 If you enjoy this stuff please like and subscribe on YouTube and subscribe to 00:12:38.884 --> 00:12:43.144 the podcast in your podcast platform of choice and leave us a review. 00:12:43.204 --> 00:12:45.034 It would really help us out. 00:12:45.534 --> 00:12:46.944 We'd love to hear what you think. 00:12:46.974 --> 00:12:50.364 And we would love to have you on the podcast if you would like to 00:12:50.364 --> 00:12:52.044 talk about this stuff with us. 00:12:52.544 --> 00:12:56.834 Also make sure to sign up for our newsletter, where we will be 00:12:56.834 --> 00:13:01.124 sending you tons of 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