JIRA can bring a new level of transparency to an Agile team, opening up the backlog and work in process beyond the team’s location.
The platform can be used for Scrum or Kanban, but ultimately it’s just a tool: it’s only as good as the data we put in.
If we want to use JIRA, we should:
for then JIRA can provide easy searching and automated reporting.
The Project in JIRA is much larger than an Information Systems ‘project’ – it is the full backlog for a product that your team (and maybe others) manages.
YME management has decided that we have three Information Systems release trains – Consumer Processes, Business Processes, and Enablement.
Initially, we will have one single JIRA Project for this entire portfolio, which will allow us to assign stories between the development teams easily.
Each team will have their own team board (either Scrum or Kanban), with their chosen team name in the title. Thanks to the "Yamaha Team" field, which contains an entry for each team, only stories owned by this team are visible on their own board.
When wishing to change the status quo, it is vital to do two things:
1) Clearly state your goal: why does it have value to do what you propose?
2) Clearly define how you will measure whether that goal has been reached.
In Agile, this is the responsibility of the Product Owner, though others (like Business Analyst) can support.
It is done by writing a "User Story" that clarifies the why and "Acceptance Criteria" that clarifies the how.
Your Scrum Master can coach you to write brief summaries:
User Story
As a <role of the one benefitting>
I want to be able to <software feature>
So that <business goal>
Acceptance Criteria
Given <data or precondition>
When <user action>
Then <system response>
And remember:
We work in increments of two weeks, because it's easier to plan realistically when timelines are short:
At YME sprints lasts 2 weeks. Within that period of time we strive to complete the chosen work.
At the end of this period, after the developers have built and unit tested, a QA officer has done integration and regression testing, and the PO has validated the results, the team together reviews which work meets the acceptance criteria and plan when to release the results.
Any work not completed moves back to the backlog, and could be selected as part of a new sprint goal in next sprint planning.
Before starting a new sprint, we hold a retrospective - looking back at how people and processes behaved during the sprint, and how we can become more efficient and more happy together.
Kanban has no limits on time, but on amount of work in process. By focussing our efforts on a single task, we strive to move items to Done in short cycles.
We work to provide continuous flow: processing work items through the required workflow (development, peer review, testing, uat, release) as soon and smoothly as possible.
If there is no limit on the amount of work in progress, or if those limitations are not honoured, it is not Kanban but a simple to-do list.
It's not easy to work though blocks sometimes, but remember that if you explain to a requester why something is not possible and they change or cancel their request, that resolves the block as well.
Releases – manage your versions
Reports – only as good as the data we put in
–for Scrum
–for Kanban
–Dashboards
Searching – across or within projects & teams
–Basic or Advanced
–Export to file
–Bulk change
Jira beginner's guide to Agile (free, self-paced, 90 minutes, certification option)