This space outlines how you can get work done by the ITS Review Production Team. The ITS Review Production Team is responsible for or completes work for the following products/projects in the review writing process:

• Archie

• RevMan 5

• RevMan Web/ReviewDB

• Translations infrastructure

• CRM integration

• Cochrane library

• My account

This work includes:

• Operations

• Implementation of new functionality

• Support

You can see which sprint the team is currently working on now and the plan for future sprints in the Sprint schedule.

Timing and Priority

The ITS Review Production Team works in time bound units called sprints according to the planned sprint schedule. Each sprint will focus on one product (or project/system), and will complete the most important work that can be done within that time which currently is 2 weeks. Priority within a product is managed through its backlog by the Product Owner. The backlog is a list of all planned work ordered by value and effort. 

The priority between products is reflected in the number and timing of sprints allocated in the sprint schedule. ITS management owns the sprint schedule, which will be strongly coupled to the Strategy and the yearly SMT objectives.    

An additional constraint is that if the real-life value of work done by ITS depends on one or more other changes (e.g features in other systems or introduction of policies), a realistic implementation plan must exist. In simple terms, we cannot afford to build something that "we're pretty sure we'll need at some point". 

If you want to learn more about the process that the ITS Production Team works according to, go to the Scrum process page. 

How do I present work to the team?

New functionality

If you are using any of our products and want to hand over an idea of new functionality, discuss or refine your idea, please send it to the Product Owner responsible for that product (List and contact details). The Product Owner will make a decision whether to add the feature to the product backlog and which time horizon the feature can be included in a sprint. Also, in the sprint schedule you can see which product the team is working on in the close future. 

The format you present your feature in will impact how soon it can be developed, assuming the Product Owner accepts it as valuable. Presenting work in the form of user stories is therefor preferred. User stories are easily formed using the following template:

In order to <value>
as a(n) <user>
I want to <action>

Hand over work for planned sprints

If you are a Product Owner handing over work to the Master Product Owner, stories should be prepared with estimation and enough specifications that implementation can start as soon as the sprint starts. Every story should give value by itself but a sprint should also have a defined sprint goal which explains the combined value of the stories. The work to prepare the stories to be ready for a sprint is preferrably performed in collaboration with the team during grooming meetings.

Support and general queries

If you have found a bug in any of the products, please contact the Product Owner of that product. If you need help concerning any of the products please contact support.

Examples of user stories:

RevMan Web:
"In order to find and open the review I came to work on,
as an author,
I want to see a list of the reviews I have a role on from where I can access that review"

Translation portal:
"In order to manage which Spanish translations to work on,
as a Spanish translation manager,
I want to see which reviews are sent for translation by Archie and be able to download the translation source and upload the translation."

Products and Product Owners

In this context, a product is an application within Cochrane. A product is distinguished from another when it is being used by different types of users.
Below is a list of products owned by Cochrane and developed and maintained by the Review Production Team in CPH.