Hi @team!
After doing a bunch of audits of blocked tickets for Bebop over the course of several sprints1, it became clear that there’s some room for improvement in how we deal with them.
So as a first step, we’re changing the scope of the existing sprint checklist task for dealing with blocked tickets to include posting an update about current status and next steps.
Here’s the new definition of the task:
Update and schedule all of your blocked tickets
Review all your stories in “External Review/Blocker” and:
- Move them out to “Long External Review/Blocked” if you don’t expect/want to work on them in the coming sprint.
- Post a comment mentioning the current status, what the next step(s) would be, and when you expect them to happen.
Review all your stories in “Long External Review/Blocked” and:
- If they haven’t moved in a while, ping someone about it (e.g., check in with upstream reviewers if you’ve been waiting for feedback on one or more PRs).
- If they are now unblocked, or if you expect that they will become unblocked soon, move them into the upcoming sprint.
- Post a comment mentioning the current status, what the next step(s) would be, and when you expect them to happen.
Ideally, this change will make it easier
- for others to understand the current status of each ticket.
- for assignees to follow up on their blocked tickets on a regular basis and get them unblocked sooner.
The overarching goal is to reduce the volume of blocked tickets that are carried from sprint to sprint (which can interfere with both short and long-term planning, as we’ve seen).
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1 BB-7519 
BB-7615 BB-7686 BB-7759
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Ticket to log time: STAR-3385