5 rules of Positive Task Naming (PTN)

We all use JIRA, or other task management systems. Some people love them, some hate. I personally like it, and will share today with you a trick to improve your experience with JIRA or any other task management system.

It all comes down to how you name your tickets, and since that said over the years I have developed a system I call Positive Task Naming (PTN). Yea, it is a thing (without a dedicated website, but it is a thing!).

Here is an example of a ticket I could consider creating:

As you can see it is a bug report. The title is “The chart colors are wrong”.

It indicates what is the problem. However, I have noticed, that it is not a great name, for two reasons:

1. It is negative
2. It is vague

Be precise!

I will start with the second point. What is wrong with the colors specifically? The title does not tell anything about it. It may be a task that will take hours to fix, because all colors are wrong, and we will have to change something in the database. Maybe it is just about two colors to change in the code? And where is the chart?

A vague ticket name automatically makes the ticket repulsive. Because you can already see, you will have to read the description, and maybe gather…