Jira projects

Information Systems are using the following projects:

In a future state for 2023 only the Jira Projects in black text will remain for Information Systems.

In due time, Information Systems teams working in Jira Software projects will be onboarded to the YIS project, so this can become our mutually agreed way of working for Software delivery.

Any team joining will be coached through the (Agile) transition and will be able to provide input on unique ways of working that will need to be integrated. Together we will make it a success.

For now, these Information Systems projects will keep on using their current of way of working. With time and proper preparation, they will migrate into YIS. 

The Change Advisory Board will be phased out completely as it will be covered by the Yamaha Portfolio Board and  Software project(s).

Three projects are different, and relate to the future YME way of working:

• Yamaha Applications Support Desk (SD) captures all requests from end-users, who experience difficulties with their day-to-day use of IT applications. These items are validated, then if valid resolved as soon as possible.
• Yamaha IS Projects (YIS) captures all work of scrum teams in the Agile Transformation. These processes are being streamlined to support scrum processes, and make Jira a tool for collaboration more than administration.
• Yamaha Portfolio Board (YPM) collects all ideas for IT initiatives, and validates the business case and expected rewards for implementing such initiatives before assigning work to development teams. It's very much about preparing work.
• Other projects capture work for teams that have not yet joined the Agile Transformation.

Jira Yamaha Applications Support Desk (SD)

Issuetypes

Audit: Used for J-sox change requests and IRY issues registered to deliver evidence for auditors.

Authorization request: Elevate user rights request used for Ympact to request YMXXITS1 access to have command line access and to operate in Ympact (Branch specific) Production environment.

RobotJob Change: Robot Job Change request used for Ympact Job scheduling

Deployment request: Triggered by Development software projects used by B2B teams for Ympact,Ympulse, Yamcom deployments.

Incident:  Reporting a incident or outage. Currently all incoming issues submitted via the Jira Customer portal will have Issue type Incident.

Service Request:  This issue type has previously been used for Information request.

Workflow

Jira YIS for Agile software development

Project YIS is set up as a single space to allow Information Systems to align on an Agile way of working, as part of the Agile Transformation.

Together we strive to arrive at a Jira configuration that is usable for all teams, supporting all YME Information Systems processes in a comprehensive, simplified manner.

Issuetypes

Issuetypes have a hierarchy to them:

Items in YIS project build on the Programmes or Projects created in YPM. An Epic should always be linked to one of these, so it is clear which strategic initiative it's part of.

An Epic is a large feature, that is broken down into its component Stories by a scrum team.

A Story is a feature that can be tested separately, and is part of an Epic.

A Sub-task is an activity that needs to be performed to complete a higher-level issuetype. It's always part of another issuetype.

At the same level as Story, other Product Backlog Items exist with slightly different meanings:

A Bug is a broken feature found outside of sprint;

A Change Request is a change to an existing feature, requested during UAT;

A Defect is a broken feature found during UAT;

A Spike is a Proof of Concept or other research required to prove the feasibility of a solution;

A Task is a Non-Functional Requirement, work in software development that brings no value to business yet is necessary (for example: code refactoring).

For testing using addon Xray, the following issuetypes exist. These are used solely by testers, to plan their work:

A Precondition describes the correct starting point of the test case. It can be a user's configuration; or a required object status, "with product _1" for example; or some permission that needs to be set before a test case is run.

A Test describes a single test scenario;

A Test Execution reports the execution of a Test;

A Test Plan is a container for test cases, usually related to a single sprint.

A Test Set collects Tests that logically belong together, so they can easily be resused, for example for planning of UAT.

Workflows

This project contains three workflows, with the distinction being made whether an item contains a software release (development workflow) or not (four step workflow).

Any work that can require a deployment uses the "Development" workflow:

These workflow steps are intended for:

• Backlog: work has not started;
• In progress: a developer builds & unit tests their own work to meet acceptance criteria;
• Review: a peer reviews any code & functionality;
• Ready for test: waiting for a QA officer;
• In test: QA officer is performing integration test & regression test;
• In UAT: PO/business validate that the functionality is as required, or provide feedback;
• Done: the work is completed without deployment needed; or
• Ready for deployment: the work is done & documented, but deployment to production is needed;
• Scheduled for deploymen: deployment date is set;
• Done deploymen: the solution is available and working on production.

Any issue-type that will not include a deployment uses the simplified "Four-step" workflow:

Epics have three additional statusses for Product Owners to prepare the work:

These workflow steps are intended for:

• Epic created: work has not yet started (this specific status allows easy searching for open Epics);
• Define business case: the goal of the epic needs to be made clear - what is the current situation, and why do we need to change this?
• Define acceptance criteria: we can only celebrate the success of an initiative, if we make clear how we will measure success - what is the acceptance criteria?
• Assign team: only after the business case and acceptance criteria are clear, does it make sense to involve a development team.

Field configuration

Yamaha Teams

This is a drop-down fields of all teams that exist within YME Information Services. When a new team is founded, an entry is added to this field.

For example, the entries on 16/11/2023:

Any team board uses this field to filter on, so it's mandary to fill in at ticket creation, so that the item will show up on the correct team board.

N.B.: In the past a free text field "Team Yamaha" was used, in which typing errors caused for tickets to get lost. This old field is in the process of being phased out, so you may still see it on certain screens.

Fix/version

When closing an item, it is mandatory to fill the field Fix/Version.

The fix/version is used to assign completed developments to a release scheduled to go to production.

Additionally, on Kanban boards, closed items will disappear from the board once a fix/version is closed, not earlier.

Jsox compliance

DoD projects

When closing an item, it is mandatory to full the field "DoD projects":

A Definition of Done (DoD) is a term from the scrum framework, which describes the agreement of what it means when an item is set to "Done" status. 

Within YME the intent it to validate these three organisation-wide requirements for each ticket, because YME is being audited on these three points. For this reason, it is expected that this field will become mandatory across all YME projects in Jira.

N.B.: Jira COP wishes to limit the field to only being mandatory when a release is involved, this is a planned improvement.

3. Bonus features of YIS

DOR

Scrum teams generally use a Definition of Ready to clarify whether a Jira issue (Product Backlog Item, or PBI) can be taken into sprint. Within Jira, this process has been summarised in a field, "DoR", which allows tracking what an issue needs to become ready for development.

The generalised DoR steps are:

1. PBI created 
2. User story defined
3. Acceptance criteria defined
4. Refinement & estimation done
5. Ready for sprint

We find that most teams follow similar steps, so should be able to make use of this field.

N.B. This is an optional feature. Set the field manually in refinement sessions, in case that makes sense for your team.

Card colours

Based on the DoR field, PBI's receive a card colour on the standardised YIS scrum and kanban boards.

This way it's easy to see whether PBI's are ready for sprint:

Product Owner boards

For Product Owners (PO's) who want to collaborate across teams, we can set up a Product Owner Board.

A PO board shows all Epics, Projects, and Programmes for teams who work on a single solution, enabling PO's to prioritise large initiatives together, and prepare new initiatives before these are assigned to development teams.

Here is an example for PO's Salesforce. Notice how certain epics are assigned to the group "PO Salesforce" to prepare further, instead of a development team:

Remember that a development team only sees Epics that are assigned to their Yamaha Team development team.

A PO board follows Epics across the board in a Kanban flow, using the YIS Epic statusses:

4. More complex Jira features

4.1 Jira SD-> B2C-Incident ticket creation

As discussed with Patrick a new functionality in Jira SD project has been created for B2C.

If a SD ticket is in progress a linked B2C-Incident ticket can now be created via Workflow-Create B2C-Incident button.

This means that CAB can now be skipped for Incidents/Bugs.

This option is only available for Consumer Applications team, not for Epam.

With this option many fields will be copied, like previously was done for CAB.
See below fields that will be copied/set:

Unfortunately it is not possible to copy all comments, but last comment and the comment entered in the comment screen that pops up if this transition is used will both be copied to the new B2C incident.

4.2 Manage versions

A new plugin has been installed called Version Manager for Jira. With the installation of this plugin, rights for all version managers have been limited to this specific functionality without the need for administer Jira-project permission.
Jira Projects are currently only configured by Jira Admins and not by specific Project Admins.

Users with "Manage Versions" permission will now see an additional item in the project sidebar .
This new item provides a user interface to create, edit, order, delete, release and archive versions for this project.
Versions set via Manage versions can be selected via drop-down fields 'Fix For Version' and 'Affects Version'.

   

Please find on the following link instructions for How to-Manage Versions and the Naming convention.