GitHub Foundations Exam, Domain 5: Project Management

Quick Reference for Domain 5: Project Management

• GitHub Projects is a project management tool that integrates with GitHub repositories. It allows users to create boards (similar to Kanban or Trello boards) for organizing, prioritizing, and tracking work progress through issues and pull requests within GitHub. This tool supports collaboration by enabling teams to visualize their workflow and manage their development tasks more efficiently. 
• GitHub Projects can be used at the organization level to include and manage work items from multiple repositories. This enables cross-functional teams to collaborate more effectively by allowing them to track and manage tasks from a centralized project board, providing a comprehensive view of the project's progress across different repositories.
• Projects are not created automatically for each repository, they require manual initiation and setup by a user.
• Project creation is not limited to GitHub administrators: users with the appropriate permissions within an organization or repository can create new projects.
• GitHub Projects provides flexibility in project visualization and management through different layout options. The Board view offers a Kanban-style approach, allowing for drag-and-drop organization of tasks across columns, while the Table view presents issues and pull requests in a spreadsheet-like format, catering to various project management styles and preferences. Teams can switch between layouts as needed
• Milestones in GitHub Projects are used to group issues and pull requests that contribute to a specific goal or phase within the project. By associating work items with milestones, teams can track their progress towards these predefined objectives, providing a clear overview of what needs to be accomplished by certain deadlines and enhancing project management and planning.
• When milestones are set with specific due dates in GitHub Projects, they serve as important checkpoints that can help teams plan their work prioritize tasks, and track progress against the project schedule. This aids in effective deadline management by providing clear targets for when different phases or features of the project should be completed.
• The Project Insights feature in GitHub Projects provides valuable data on aspects such as task completion rates, the volume of active issues and pull requests, and how these metrics change over time. This information allows project managers to evaluate team performance, understand project progression, and make informed decisions regarding resource allocation, prioritization, and deadline adjustments, ultimately aiming to improve project outcomes.
• Project Insights provide a broader scope of metrics than just commit frequencies: they give a comprehensive view of project activity, including task completion rates and workload distribution.
• Project Insights are available to all users of GitHub Projects, not just those with GitHub Enterprise, and they offer more than just basic metrics, including detailed analyses useful for project management.
• Integrating GitHub Projects with GitHub Actions enables a variety of automated workflows that streamline project management tasks. Examples of automation include moving tasks across project columns based on their status, assigning issues, or triggering specific actions, which streamlines operations and ensures tasks progress in a consistent and predictable manner. This level of automation helps teams maintain focus on their work while reducing the manual overhead involved in project management.
• Integration with GitHub Actions is available to all GitHub users, not just GitHub Enterprise users, and it offers a wide range of automation possibilities beyond just sending notification emails.
• Integrating GitHub Projects with Issues, Pull Requests, and Actions creates a centralized project management environment. This integration allows for better tracking of work items and automates workflows, which fosters collaboration, ensures that team members are aligned, and streamlines the overall project management process.
• GitHub Projects allows for the configuration of automated workflows that can move tasks (issues and pull requests) between different stages or columns based on specific triggers or criteria, such as the closing of an issue or the merging of a pull request. This automation enhances project management efficiency by reducing manual task updates and ensures consistent progression of work through predefined stages, aligning closely with the project's workflow.
• Automation rules within GitHub Projects can significantly reduce the need for manual oversight by automating repetitive tasks such as moving issues and pull requests through the workflow, applying labels for categorization, and assigning team members to tasks. This automation ensures that project boards are kept up-to-date with minimal manual intervention, allowing team members to focus more on the development work itself rather than project administration.
• Template repositories in GitHub allow users to create new projects with a predefined set of files, directories, and settings, mirroring the structure and content of the template. This functionality helps streamline the setup process for new projects that require a similar baseline, promoting consistency and efficiency in project management across similar project types.
• The primary purpose of template repositories is to provide a consistent starting point for new projects.
• The process for utilizing template repositories involves marking an existing repository as a template through its Settings page, enabling it under Options. This template can then be selected during the creation of new repositories, allowing them to inherit the template's directory structure, branches, and predefined files. This approach simplifies project initiation by providing a consistent starting point for similar project types, enhancing productivity and consistency across projects.
• Template repositories can be created and used by any GitHub user with the appropriate permissions, not just GitHub administrators, and they allow for customization according to the needs of each new project.
• GitHub Projects allows for the creation of custom labels that can be applied to issues and pull requests, enhancing task management. This level of customization ensures that tasks can be categorized, sorted, and prioritized effectively, according to the unique needs and conventions of the project, thus aiding in the overall organization and tracking of project progress.
• Labels in GitHub Projects serve as a powerful tool for categorizing and prioritizing issues and pull requests. By applying labels like bug, feature, or different priority levels, teams can easily filter and sort work items, facilitating better organization and management of project tasks. Labels help streamline workflows by enabling quick identification and grouping of related items.
• In GitHub Projects, labels and milestones can be effectively utilized together to enhance project management. Labels serve to categorize issues and pull requests by features, bug fixes, or priorities, while milestones group these items towards specific goals or deadlines.
• This combination allows teams to track project progress in a more organized and goal-oriented manner, providing clarity on what tasks contribute to which objectives and how close they are to completion.
• The process for creating a new project involves navigating to the Projects tab of an organization or repository, initiating a new project, selecting the project type (either Project or Project Classic), and setting up initial configurations such as columns for task stages and automation rules to reflect the team's workflow. This setup allows for tailored project management that aligns with team practices and goals.
• Projects Classic may be preferred by project managers who require a simpler interface or when managing smaller projects that do not necessitate the advanced features of the new GitHub Projects. It may also be suitable for teams that are accustomed to the classic Kanban board layout and do not require the additional customization and automation options provided by the newer version.
• The new GitHub Projects enhances project management capabilities by introducing features like advanced automation options for tasks, customizable workflows to suit different project needs, and a more tightly integrated issue tracking system.
• Saved replies in GitHub provide a way for users to pre-compose and save responses to frequently asked questions or common feedback scenarios. This feature enables quick, consistent communication across issues and pull requests, saving time and enhancing efficiency in project management by allowing for rapid replies without the need to rewrite the same responses repeatedly.
• Saved replies can be utilized in both private and public repositories, aiding in communication efficiency regardless of the repository's visibility.
• Adding assignees to issues and pull requests involves navigating to the specific item, clicking on the Assignees section in the right sidebar, and then selecting the team member(s) you wish to assign. This practice is crucial for project management as it clearly delegates responsibility for specific tasks, aiding in organization and ensuring accountability within the team by making it clear who is responsible for what work.

Also see - Learning Resources for GitHub Foundations Certification