This is a pre-emptive post to answer a question nobody has asked. But they will. Why can’t you add multiple owners to a card in Millrace? The answer, in short, is that it breaks one of the foundational rules of visualizing work.
Two people cannot work on the same task. If you think they are, you’re likely operating at the wrong elevation.
Let me explain, based on using tools that do allow multiple people to be attached to the same card.
Collaboration is good, isn’t it?
As a programmer, it is not uncommon to collaborate. You work with people who use your software and who help you build it. Maybe some testers, database administrators, or other developers. Pairing or teaming a building task is one of the best ways to tackle complex work, so it often feels like we could pin many people to a single task.
This is a mistake I made on physical boards. It’s a mistake I’ve made on virtual boards. So, I’m defensively preventing myself making the mistake again when I’m using Millrace. A card has exactly one owner. And here’s the practical problems prevented by this decision.
A problem, shared
You won’t find all these problems are present every time, but you’ll certainly experience at least one on each shared card.
- You don’t start the task at the same time
- The state of the task can differ for each participant
- You don’t finish the task at the same time
- You’re not doing the same task
Starting a task at the same time as someone else is the easiest barrier to break down. You can simply hold the task until you’re both ready. Of course, what’s more likely is that one of you will start the task, even if you’re just planning out some ideas. You’ve started. I haven’t.
This is just one of the reasons the second problem occurs. The card is lying, because it’s in the “doing” column but one of us isn’t “doing” it. There are many reasons this can happen. I might be called away to handle an incident. You might have a couple of days off. The card is presenting a clean picture, but it’s not visualizing reality.
And this leads to a classic problem, which is when you think you’re done with the card, but I still want to mop up something. You want to move your task to “done”, but I want to keep it in “doing”.
And this is all because we’re not doing the same task. Sure, we might be working on the same feature, but we’re each contributing something different. Sometimes we’re doing that synchronously. Sometimes we’re pushing it along at different times.
A realistic map
We’ve compromised this because we’re not being honest about the purpose of visualizing our work. Anyone should be able to glance at this board and know what’s going on. Shared cards hide crucial information about reality.
If only there was a way to resolve this issue of one task needing to have different states at the same time, needing to reflect different parts of the work, and starting and finishing at different times,
Well, there is.
In Millrace, it’s called the “copy card” button and it will let you duplicate a card so you can each have one with your name on it. These cards can start and finish at different times. You can add your own action dates and notes. You could place different checklist items within the Markdown on the two cards.
Having two cards is the graceful, honest way to have multiple owners on a task.
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