[roc]

And the problem with keeping things in email are numerous and insidious. Consider:

email hides embedded knowledge and frail processes (Jane asks Bob for A in an email and only Bob knows that B and C are implied when Jane asks. If Bob is out, the process to ask for A can be completely paralyzed.)

no actionable meta-data (no easy way to harvest project name, members, status, dates, etc. Good luck trying to find out who you need to invite to an integration-of-two-systems meeting.)

no easy way to bring new people up-to-date, save massive retyping.

no easy way to know current progress without sending out a mass request-for-status email

history tracking problems (all it takes is one or two people to not hit reply-all, for an email history to be completely untrustworthy from any one inbox)

Naturally, people should aspire to make replacement systems as easy or more easy to use than the ones they replace. But email being easy is never a good argument for leaving a process in it. Particularly not project-management tasks.

[bbarthel]

Please don't mistake my comment as an argument for using email in all situations. I think that source control is widely accepted and about as frictionless as it should be. There are a variety of task-management tools and processes that can be used pretty easily within a team and also generally hit about the right level of friction. I love being able to integrate the two and further reduce needless friction. It is all the different discussions and conversations that go on around those items that are difficult because I don't want any friction in those discussions. I should be able to see what my client thinks of the new GUI, or ask an old roommate of mine to review some performance-critical code and see how he would approach it without requiring them to create a new account, get access from IT, purchase a license, or any of the other impediments usually placed on using these sorts of tools.

Basically, my thought is that if you are attempting to compete with/replace email, you need to address the friction issue for those items. Otherwise people will eventually revert to email at which point updating the repository becomes another item in the todo-list, and the reality I've experienced is that it will ALWAYS be the bottom item.

In short, I agree with all the problems you cite, I simply have not been able to experience the ideal because none of the systems I have attempted to use reduce the barriers to communication sufficiently to replace email.

[auxbuss]

Absolutely. With email, business knowledge gets hidden in someone's inbox. It's of absolutely no value to the business in there.

It's a hard sell to get a business to change its behaviour and keep its information elsewhere where it can be shared for the greater good.

It's a big problem for a business.