How to use JIRA effectively in release cycles during an IT Project?
Jira is one of the top tools when it comes to backlog management of software or product development. It is designed to organize and structure projects, track the progress, and collaborate with others on various activities. The Atlassian tool offers a variety of customizable functions that ensure the tool fits to the demands of different projects and work of the teams.
Jira can be used to manage the whole backlog of a software/product
Within Jira you have the possibility to define different issue types to distinguish between the work packages that are required for your development. The creation features and user stories are an essential step to break down the requirements for the software or product. All of that can be captured in Jira and you even have the possibility to illustrate the relationships and dependencies among the various issue types. Define priorities and development effort for each item as well as the business impact to identify what needs to be delivered first.
It is important that the work within the backlog is broken-down into smaller pieces so that the work effort becomes clearer and more transparent to the management but especially to the teams that need to work on it. Once you have entered the desired building blocks for your software or product, make sure you refine them properly, so that it is easy to understand what the request of the ticket is. If you have clearly defined and formulated backlog items, it will save you a lot of time as a minimum of alignments will be required to get the ticket done.
Set release timelines in Jira with the fix version
The fix version field helps during the release planning by grouping related issues together under a specific version. This facilitates better understanding of what features or fixes will be included in each release, supporting in capacity planning and resource allocation. With fix versions in place, agile team members and stakeholders can easily communicate about the progress of the project and the expected release dates. It fosters transparency and helps manage expectations effectively. Further, the fix version provides a historical record of previous releases, making it simpler to track the progress and performance of the product development over time.
For operational work use sprints to divide your work into smaller time boxes to tackle the request
Using sprints in Jira for operational work is an effective approach to manage and prioritize requests efficiently. By dividing the work into smaller time boxes, teams can focus on specific goals and deliverables within a certain amount of time. This method encourages a more iterative and agile approach to handle larger work packages. Through sprints in Jira, agile teams foster collaboration and transparency of their work progress. It also provides the opportunity to response quickly to a change of priorities or other unforeseen events.
Use dashboards to illustrate progress of releases and the overall backlog
Creating dashboards in Jira is an effective way to illustrate the progress and status of the overall backlog. Dashboards can be set up for every project or even across multiple projects as they are based on a rich filter. The rich filter sets the basis for all the gadgets that can be added to the dashboard. Gadgets are nothing else then the illustration of the content in the project in form of diagrams, charts, statistics, and maps. To set up valuable dashboards, define your audience and the purpose of the dashboard and think about which information would be valuable for your stakeholders. With that in mind you can create powerful dashboards that are easy to use and create transparency to all parties involved in your project.
Set up a proper workflow in Jira, and keep it as simple as possible to avoid high administration
Setting up a proper workflow in Jira is crucial to ensure smooth project management and transparency. Simplicity is key to avoid excessive administrative overhead, so keeping the workflow as straightforward as possible is essential. Begin by defining the work sections of the workflow that reflect the key steps involved in your project or task management process. Aim to keep the number of statuses to a minimum and ensure that each one of them represents a significant change of the progress of the work item. Over time you will get a feeling of which steps within a workflow are crucial. Therefore, review the workflow together with the agile teams and adjust it whenever necessary.
Define fields and values that you need but limit it to the necessary information
Spent some time thinking about what information you want to capture on the tickets to be able to do the required work. Are there any fields needed to fulfill certain tasks or the development team requires to report on their progress of the operational work? Also, are there any templates that you want to create to simplify the ticket creation? You can pre-define checklists for different scenarios, e.g., the Definition of Done or the Acceptance criteria. In Jira, you have the possibilities to add many different fields and values to the tickets, but keep in mind that the tickets should not be overloaded. A clean and structured issue type helps the agile teams more than an overflow of information. You can also use field tabs in an issue type to cluster the fields by different categories, e.g., an own field tab for the IT evaluation of the item.
Establish a role and permission scheme to enable the people’s responsibilities.
To work and collaborate properly within a Jira project it is essential to have the right role and permission scheme in place. A concept of which role should be accountable for the high-level planning of the items versus the team who is doing the actual work has to be established. The Product Owners should be the one defining the release for a feature to be delivered. However, the agile teams need to plan the sprints on their own when they are going to tackle the user stories. Make sure all stakeholders can see the items the team is working on and make comments or suggestions to the tickets. But ensure they are not able to change any key information on the ticket itself. The agile teams should have the permission to edit all fields required to properly work on the items incl. Setting due dates and sprints for the individual tickets. The fix version, however, should be only maintainable by the Product Owner who is deciding when each feature will be released.
Overall,
Jira on its own will not ensure a great output, but it ensures a well-structured and transparent backlog. The product features as well as the user stories must be articulated in a clear and meaningful way to ensure everyone, especially the development teams, understand the business needs.
