Process standardization is not the end, but the cornerstone of a continuous revolution in R&D efficiency. When the ticket system truly becomes the “nerve center” of the R&D team, the precise flow of every requirement, the controlled submission of every line of code, and the reliable release of every version will converge into a powerful driving force for the continuous evolution of the product.
A good work order system is the core engine to break down the barriers of technical team collaboration.
In your daily work in software development, have you experienced these scenarios?
- Business requirements are communicated verbally or fragmentedly, and the development team repeatedly confirms that the understanding is still biased
- When there is a bug online, all departments blame each other, and it is impossible to quickly locate the person in charge
- The release process is chaotic, and the configuration of the test environment and the production environment is inconsistent, leading to failures
- Demand priorities change frequently, and development resource allocation is out of control
The root cause of these problems is often the lack of process standardization and collaboration mechanisms. This article provides an in-depth analysis of how the work order system becomes the “process hub” of the R&D team, and takes software R&D work orders (requirement orders/bug orders/release orders) as an example to explain in detail the full-link method from design concept to configuration implementation.
1. What is a work order system? From definition to core values
1. Definition of work order system:
Standardized, process-based task collaboration tools that transform unstructured requirements into traceable and quantifiable process nodes.
Key features:
(1) Template: Preset form templates and enter specifications (such as demand description and urgency).
(2) Process: Define the task flow path (such as submission→ review→ execution→ acceptance).
(3) Automation: Reduce manual intervention (e.g., automatic assignment of responsible persons, timeout reminders) through the rule engine.
2. Core value: solve pain points and drive efficiency
Pain Point Scenario:
(1) The verbal transmission of requirements leads to distortion of information (e.g., “the user says he wants a button” becomes “refactored page”).
(2) The rights and responsibilities of cross-departmental collaboration are ambiguous (such as the phenomenon of “kicking the ball” in O&M and development).
(3) There is no record of historical operations, and it is difficult to review the accident (such as data deletion cannot be traced back).
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The core value of the work order system:
(1) Efficiency improvement: reduce duplicate communication and shorten the task response cycle.
(2) Risk control: avoid human error through approval flow and operation traces.
(3) Data-driven: Accumulate process data and optimize resource allocation (such as identifying high-frequency problem types).
2. The core concept of the work order system
Designing an efficient work order system requires three principles:
- Scenario-based classification: Reject “universal work order”:Design dedicated ticket templates and processes for different task types, such as software requirements that need to be associated with PRD documents, and bug orders that require mandatory code submission records.
- Restraints and flexible balance:Ensure the integrity of key information (such as the bug list must include environment information and reproduction steps) through required fields, and provide custom fields to meet specific business expansion needs.
- Full life cycle control:Design a clear state machine to achieve a closed loop (such as demand orders: pending review→ scheduled→ under development→ testing→ online), automatic early warning: set up a hierarchical reminder mechanism – Level 1 (24h): gently remind the executor; Level 2 (48h): Escalate the alarm and notify its superior to intervene.
3. Detailed explanation of the core modules of the work order system
1. Work order classification configuration: Scenario-based design is the soul
Modular design is the core advantage of the work order system, which realizes full-link automated collaboration of “requirements→bug→release” through pluggable components.
Classification logic and business mapping table:
Examples of key configuration differences:
Software requirement list: It is necessary to associate PRD documents and scheduling boards.
Data modification order: Mandatory backup and two-person review are required.
Permission configuration order: You need to associate the RBAC (role-based access control) role model (user-role-permission).
2. Work order information configuration: field design and data specification
Core dimensions of field design:
Basic information: ticket title, submitter, urgency (P0-P3), expected completion time.
Business information: Requirement background/problem description, expected effect/remediation criteria, associated systems/modules (drop-down menu), scope of impact.
Risk control: rollback plan/emergency plan, compliance review items (check box), historical related work orders.
Smart technology for efficiency:
Intelligent pre-filling: Automatically populate common information based on historical ticket data (e.g., automatically bring out the device model and operating system version when users submit bugs).
System integration: Connect with external systems (such as JIRA) and automatically synchronize associated information (such as requirement number, code commit).
4. Practical cases: explanation of software research and development work orders
4.1 Software Request Order
Pain point scenario: The business side arbitrarily raises demands, lacks evaluation, and the development team falls into a “pseudo-demand swamp” and wastes resources.
Flow chart of demand orders:
Classification configuration:
Bind different approval flows (complexity and scope of influence) to determine the approval chain according to the type of requirement (feature addition, experience optimization, technical debt, bug fix).
Field design:
Applicant information: user name, department, department reviewer (to ensure internal consensus).
Requirements information: business classification, associated application system, task summary, detailed description (including background, target users, value), expected revenue/ROI estimate (fillable), attachments (PRD, prototype diagram, etc.).
Circulation nodes: The responsible development and testers must be clearly designated during the task analysis stage.
4.2 Software bug list
Pain point scenario: The developer fills in the root cause analysis perfunctory (such as simply marking “code error”), resulting in the recurrence of similar problems.
Software BUG Single Flow Chart:
Classification configuration:
Define different SLAs (response and resolution timeliness) by source (user feedback/monitoring alarms/test findings).
Smart Prefill:
When the user/tester submits, the system automatically fills in the environment information such as device model, operating system version, and browser version, reducing information gaps and accelerating positioning.
4.3 Software release order
Pain point scenarios: Manual deployment is prone to errors, leading to environment configuration drift (such as inconsistent test/production environments), and high risk of rollback failure.
Software release order flow chart:
Process Engine:
Integrate CI/CD tools (such as Jenkins) to automate the validation of release checklists (e.g., code scan rate > 90%, unit test coverage > 80%, critical interface test pass, dependent service health check).
Safety design:
- Two-person review: Production environment release operation requires two-person review confirmation.
- Endorsement mechanism: Additional approval (endorsement) is required for key operations or high-risk releases.
- Audit trail: Encrypt records of key fields of the release order (such as version number, operator, and time) to ensure that the operation is auditable.
5. Guide to avoiding pits: summary of blood and tears experience
5.1 ROI trap of demand orders
Wrong practice:
Allows business parties to skip the Expected Benefit or Business Value fields and submit requirements directly.
Improvement plan:
Set Expected Revenue/Business Value as a high priority field (not required but highly recommended, or required for specific types of requirements).
Built-in simple ROI calculator: Provides tools in the form to guide business parties to enter key parameters (such as estimated impact on the number of users× customer unit price× conversion rate increase estimates) to automatically generate ROI estimates to assist in demand review decisions.
5.2 Root cause analysis of bug lists
Typical Questions:
Developers fill in “reason statements” (e.g., “code errors”, logic problems) that lack depth and cannot guide prevention.
Solution:
Design drop-down menus or radio buttons to categorize common root causes:
(1) Logical branch missing/error
(2) Boundary conditions are not handled
(3) Third-party service abnormalities/timeouts/return errors
(4) Data compatibility issues (old and new data, different sources)
(5) Misconfiguration (Environment, Parameters)
(6) Performance bottlenecks/insufficient resources
(7) Understanding deviations/requirements changes are not synchronized
(8) Others (to be detailed)
Mandatory: When selecting “Other”, you must fill in a detailed text description. Combine the Scope of Impact and Remediation Scenario fields to form a complete analysis.
6. Summary and prospect
The core value of a ticketing system is to create freedom of collaboration through process constraints. When key processes such as requirements delivery, bug fixing, release and deployment are effectively standardized and controlled, teams can truly liberate themselves from the chaos and focus on high-value creation activities.
Next Preview: In-depth business scenarios and high-level practices
In “Work Order System Design in Practice (Part 2)”, we will focus on more challenging business scenarios and high-level configurations
- Data O&M work orders: How to design a “two-person review + operation screen recording” mechanism to completely avoid high-risk data operation accidents?
- Service Collaboration Tickets: How to Use the “SLA Circuit Breaker” mechanism to quantify service commitments, break down departmental walls, and improve collaboration efficiency?
- Account permission tickets: How to realize dynamic permission recycling based on the life cycle (such as employee transfer/resignation) to eradicate the security risk of “permission residue”?
