Question

FogBugz seems like a nice way to have to views on the same database: one for engineers and one for project managers. This way new tasks (i.e., bugs) added to the bug tracker automatically show up on the project plan, thus minimizing the effort in keeping things in sync. However, searching the various databases and playing with the trial fogbugz on demand led to a dead-end regarding one critical feature: how to set up task dependencies.

With this, I could see how to use it as a replacement for a Gantt chart. Without it, I don't see how to properly set priorities / determine the critical paths.

Answer 1

This is the kind of thing that milestones are designed for. Milestone dependencies filter down to the per-developer timelines, which have a lot of the features of Gantt charts, but don't obscure important information.

Task-by-task dependencies, or Bugzilla-style blocking, seems like a natural idea. I can't do X until Bob gets off his butt and does Y. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, it turns out that offering this kind of blocking is hideously inefficient and actually prevents projects from going forward or bringing all their resources to bear on the problems they're trying to solve.

But milestone dependencies, that seems sort of heavy-handed, right? Well, that depends on what you think of as a milestone. Once you start thinking of a milestone as any fixed point along the project lifespan, and creating as many as you need to do your job, dependencies become much easier. A milestone can represent a sprint, a release, anything.

Beyond that, we find that sub-cases and hierarchy give enough dependency indication that people can see at a glance where they are in the project.

Answer 2

I know theres dependencies available for Milestones, but thats not as granular enough for my company's personal need.

Basically we need to be able to set up dependencies between any two cases/sub-cases, across all projects. Which would require displaying (among other things) two fields on the case add/edit page 1. cases that depend on this case(X) 2. cases this case(X) depends on.

It would help out with our scheduling, making it easier to keep tract of what tasks/cases/sub-cases need to wait until case X is at a certain status.

Answer 3

Check out the Dependencies Plugin. As of this writing, it's currently only available for licensed FogBugz installs.

Answer 4

You can create Dependencies (under Admin->Projects) for your Milestones -- does that help?