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Self-Help Guide
Jira for Scaled Agile Teams
This self-help guide is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support.
Manage Your Work in Jira
Understand Your Team's Jira Project
Find Projects and Team Boards
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
OIT manages scaled agile team work in Jira. Each team has its own project. Project names typically are the same as the team name. If you have difficulty finding a project, consult with the team's Scrum Facilitator or Product Owner.
Finding a project
1. Go to the Projects list in Jira.
2. In the search box, type the name of your team's board and hit Enter. The search function will filter the results.
3. Select the title of the project.
4. The project will open to the Project Board.
Find Current Team Work
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
Projects can be organized in a variety of ways. See Understand the Difference Between Scrum and Kanban. You may also want to consult with the team's Scrum Facilitator or Product Owner.
Finding the Current Iteration or Current Work
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. From the pop-out side menu, select Active Sprints or Kanban Board.
The working project board opens with a set of columns for different steps in the workflow, and cards for each active story showing in the columns. There may also be cards for operational work -- these might be categorized as tasks or subtasks.
Find Upcoming Team Work
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
Upcoming and future work is frequently referred to as a projects backlog. You will use different methods to find the backlog depending on how the project is set up in Jira.
Finding the Team's Backlog of Upcoming Work
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. Determine whether the project uses a Kanban Board or an Active Sprint board
by viewing the links in the pop-out side menu.
3. If the project is organized around a Kanban Board:
The upcoming work will be in the leftmost column, usually labeled To Do.
The highest-priority work should be at the top.
4. If the project has an Active Sprint:
From the pop-out side menu, select Backlog.
The Backlog should be divided into one or more future sprints (iterations).
At the bottom of the Backlog there is another subheading called
"backlog". This is for future stories that haven't been allocated to a specific iteration yet.
Understand the Difference Between a Kanban and Scrum Board
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
To find out the standard practices your team has around the project board, such as who can claim a story and who can move stories on the board, check with the team's Product Owner or Scrum Facilitator.
Kanban Board
Kanban boards are typically used for operational day to day work. The backlog is always visible in a Kanban Board -- it's the list of items in the first column, often labeled To Do.
In a Kanban Board, the Product Owner should be keeping a close eye on the To Do column. Product Owners change the priority of the stories in the column by moving them up for higher prioritized items and down for lower prioritized items.
Kanban boards can be useful when most of the team members have similar skills, so any team member can pick up any story from the top of the To Do column and
start working on it.
Scrum Board
Scrum boards are typically used for planned work that has already been divided into iterations. A project using a Scrum Board will display the current, active iteration ( Active Sprint) when you first visit the project. Future planned iterations can be found in the Backlog.
Additional Resources
Kanban vs Scrum
Use your kanban backlog Use your scrum backlog
Understand How Agile Work is Broken Down
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
Before and during Program Increment (PI) planning, work is broken down into features and stories, and then organized into iterations.
In this article:
Breaking Down Work into Features and Stories Organizing Work into Iterations
Using the Backlog
Breaking Down Work into Features and Stories
Features - The Product Manager (PM) is responsible for defining features by working with business customers, stakeholders, and the Product Owner (PO), as well as getting input from team members. A feature represents a body of work that will deliver value and can be completed within one Planning Iteration (PI). A feature consists of:
A benefit hypothesis - what is the value that the work will create?
A list of acceptance criteria - this will be used by the Product Manager to determine when a feature is complete.
A feature might also contain information on risks and dependencies - what might get in the way of completing a feature, and what will be needed before the work can start.
Note: In some parts of Jira, features might be labeled as Epics.
Stories - Stories are written by the team -- the PO, the Scrum Facilitator (SF), and the team members. Before and during PI planning, the team reviews each feature, and then writes stories to represent all the work needed to meet the
definition of done. At its most basic, a story consists of:
A statement of value, which follows the specific structure "As a [user role], I want/need to [something] so that [goal]"
Example: As a TDX user with a technician role, I need to be informed of the TDX upgrade so that I can be prepared for any impact to my work.
A list of acceptance criteria - this will be used by the team to determine when a story is complete.
Example: Communications plan prepared and approved by Product Managers.
Note: A team should also follow the team's and US's definition of done when completing stories. A team's definition of done includes all the standards for quality of work that the team and US agree upon, such as testing protocols, code reviews, peer reviews, checklists, style guides, etc. These do not need to be listed in acceptance criteria.
Example: a story about creating knowledge for a new product does not need to include "KBAs meet the Checklist for Internal and Public-Facing Knowledge requirements" because all
knowledge published in US needs to meet that checklist. That is part of US's definition of done for knowledge articles.
Story points - an estimation of the overall effort required to complete the story. Story points should reflect a combination of the actual amount of work, the complexity of the work, and how much risk or uncertainty is involved. User Support uses a Fibonacci scale (1, 2, 3, 5, 8) for estimating story points.
A story might also list dependencies (on other stories or features), risks,
and other notes.
Organizing Work into Iterations
Iterations
An iteration is simply a chunk of planned work time. In User Support, we plan two weeks of work in each iteration.
At the beginning of every two week iteration, each team meets for iteration planning. The team reviews and adjusts the planned stories, adds and removes stories as needed, and ensures everyone understands the acceptance criteria and what they need to do. The team then agrees to the plan.
During the iteration, the team meets regularly to review how the work is progressing. This usually takes the form of daily scrums, sync-ups or check-ins.
At the end of each two week iteration, each team shares what they've accomplished with the PM and key stakeholders in an iteration review
. Then the team discusses how the work went and how they can improve in an iteration retrospective.
During PI planning, the stories defined by the team are organized into the iterations of the next PI (each PI typically consists of three months or 12 weeks of planned work).
Throughout the PI, the PO and the team adjust and reorganize the stories in the iterations as needed.
Using the Backlog
Backlog
The backlog should be used to make note of work the team identifies organically. The PO communicates with the PM about this work, and prioritizes it accordingly.
During PI planning, any known future work that the team cannot commit to for a given PI can be put in the project backlog. If time allows or if priorities changes, the team can pull work from the backlog into current iterations.
Find Your Work
Find Stories That Are Assigned to You
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
In Scaled Agile some work will be assigned to you as an individual on your team's board. This article details how to find the work assigned to you.
Projects can be organized in a variety of ways, and tasks and stories may be assigned in different ways depending on the team. Check with the team's Product Owner or Scrum Facilitator to find out what standard practices the team has around assigning issues in Jira.
Filtering Using Your Name
Using the Assignee Filters of the team on a board, you can filter the board to show issues assigned to specific people. To filter to see only your issues:
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. Select your initials or image and the board will filter to show only the items assigned to you.
Filtering Using Only My Issues Button
Some boards are set up with the filtering option called Only My Issues. If your board has this filter, you can use it to filter the board to only show your issues.
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. Select Only My Issues to see only the issues assigned to yourself.
Find Specific Stories on the Project Board
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
There are a variety of ways to quickly find specific stories on a project board.
Note: All the filters described below are additive. If you apply more than one type of filter, you will only get results that meet both filter criteria. Example: if you filter for the text "knowledge" and for stories assigned to "JJ", you will only see the stories assigned to JJ that have the word knowledge in the title.
Using the Filter Issues text box
This quickly filters the board to only display stories that match the text string you have entered.
The filter applies to the story Title, Number and Assignee. It does not apply to the story Description or any other field.
Start with a short word or phrase.
Example: if you want to find a story called "Account Import: New Client Accounts Missing", you can successfully search on "account" or "import"
or even "account import", but "import accounts" will not display the story.
Using the Assignee Filters
Click on the initials or image of a team member to see only stories assigned to that team member.
These work like a toggle. You will need to deselect one team member before switching to another.
Using Quick Filters
Quick filters may be available on certain boards.
Select the filter name to apply the filter criteria. On some boards, you need to select the Quick Filter button first before you can select a specific quick filter.
Quick filters need to be set up by the Scrum Facilitator or Product Owner, so if you have questions about specific quick filters, check with them.
Understand Your Work
View Details of a Story
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
During iteration planning your team should have added acceptance criteria and story points to the stories connected to each feature (sometimes labeled as an epic in Jira). This article details how to find these descriptions for a story, and how to add comments, update, and share a story. Check with the team's Product Owner or Scrum Facilitator to find out what standard practices the team has around updating stories in Jira.
Viewing the Details of a Story
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. Select Active sprints or Kanban board from the side menu.
3. Select the story you are looking for information on. This opens the details of the story in a pop-up window.
To open the story in its own tab or window, select the issue ID at the top of the pop-up window.
1. The Description of the story (option 1 in the image) should include the acceptance criteria.
Acceptance criteria should have been added to the story by your team during iteration planning. If you have questions about
acceptance criteria talk to your Scrum Facilitator or Project Owner.
2. The Activity section (option 2) shows all the comments, and defaults to showing the newest at the top.
3. The Details area on the right (option 3) includes the Story Points 4. Select the Epic Link (option 4) to view the feature this story is a part of.
The link will reload the window to show the details of the epic.
Note: To open the link in a new window, use Ctrl+click (Cmd+click)
Additional Resources
Watch, share, and comment on an issue
Find and Review Features (Epics)
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
A feature represents a body of work that will deliver value and can be completed within one Planning Iteration (PI). Features are broken down into stories.
Important: A feature is sometimes called an "epic" in the Jira tool.
Check with the team's Product Owner or Scrum Facilitator to find out what standard practices the team has around features in Jira.
Finding and Reviewing Features From a Story
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. Select Active sprints from the side menu.
3. Select the story that has the feature you want to view. This opens the description of the story in a pop-up window.
4. Open the Details dropdown.
5. Select the Epic Link. This reloads the page and opens the feature.
Note: To open the link in a new window, use Ctrl + click (Cmd + click)
6. This page contains the feature's details.
Finding and Reviewing All Features
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. Select Backlog from the side menu.
3. Select EPICS from the left column. This opens a list of all current features.
4. Click the down arrow and select Show Epic Details. This reloads the page and opens the epic.
5. This page contains the epic's details.
Move a Story Through the Workflow on a Board
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
Stories can be moved between columns on a board to follow the workflow. Before moving stories on your team's board, you should make sure you understand your team's expectations on moving stories. Check with your Scrum Facilitator to see whether you should move your stories and the stories of others on your team or whether the Scrum Facilitator will move the stories.
Moving a Story Through the Workflow on a Board
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. Stories begin on the To Do column. When you have begun work on a story to move it to the In Progress column you can click and drag the story into the
new column.
Note: This is an example. The columns are To Do, In Progress, and Done but the columns on your team's project may be labeled differently. Check with your Scrum Facilitator to be sure you understand what each column in your project means and where you should be moved next to follow the project's workflow.
3. Continue this process of clicking and dragging the story throughout the workflow.
Note: Some boards have multiple statuses per column. If you accidentally drag a story to the wrong status, you will need to drag it back to the previous column, then drag it in again to the correct status.
Changing the Status in the Story Itself
1. If necessary, view the details of the story.
2. Select the Change Status drop down menu in the upper right and chose the appropriate status in the workflow.
Note: the statuses in this menu may not be listed in the same order as they are in the workflow.
Share What You’re Working On
Share a Story
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
To share a story with others, you can send them the link to the story. There are several methods of getting the link to share a story with others.
Using the Share Button
1. Open your team's project. See Find Projects and Team Boards if needed.
2. Select Active sprints from the side menu.
3. Select the appropriate story. This opens the description of the story in a pop-up window.
4. Select the Share button and then Copy link. This copies the link to your
clipboard for you to share as needed.
Using the Copy Link Button
1. Open your team's project.
2. Select Active sprints from the side menu.
3. Select the appropriate story. This opens the description of the story in a pop-up window.
4. Mouse over the spot just to the right of the story number. This copies the link to your clipboard for you to share as needed.
Using the Story URL
1. Open your team's project.
2. Select Active sprints from the side menu.
3. Ctrl+click or Cmd+click while selecting the appropriate story number. This opens the story in a new window.
4. Copy the URL and share it as needed.
Note: All Jira story URLs have a standard
format: https://umnoit.atlassian.net/browse/[story number]
View All Your Jira Work Body
This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
You can quickly see all the stories assigned to you by using the Your Work page.
Viewing Your Work
1. Open Jira.
2. Select Your Work from the top navigation. A drop-down menu opens showing a Recent tab with links to your recently used stories, tasks, and features, and a Boards tab with links to your frequently used boards.
3. Select Go to Your Work page at the bottom of the drop-down menu.
Use the Your Work page to quickly go to recently viewed projects, or to view:
Worked On: a list of stories, tasks and features you have updated or commented on.
Viewed: everything you have viewed in Jira with the most recently viewed at the top.
Assigned to me: all stories, tasks and features assigned to you across all projects that are not complete.
Starred: anything in Jira that you have starred.
Create a Dashboard
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This article is for scaled agile team members in OIT User Support. It is a part of the Jira for Scaled Agile Teams Self-Help Guide.
Dashboards can be used to add multiple reports to one page for one or more projects. Dashboards can help you to stay organized in Jira and to see your work and other relevant stats in one place.
Dashboards can be private for yourself, or shared with people in specific groups or projects. Check with the team's Product Owner or Scrum Facilitator to find out what standard practices the team has if making a Dashboard for a project team's use.
Creating a Dashboard
1. Go to umnoit.atlassian.net
2. In the top menu, select Dashboards.
3. From the dropdown, select Create dashboard. This opens a popup window.
4. Add a name in the Name textbox.
5. (Optional) Add a description of the dashboard to the Description textbox.
6. (Optional) Change who can view the dashboard by selecting from the
dropdown under Viewers. It defaults to Private which means only you can view the dashboard.
7. Click Save. This reloads the page to show your new blank dashboard.
8. (Optional) Select the Change layout button to select the layout option you prefer.
9. Select the Add gadget button. This opens the Add a gadget popup window.
10. Choose the gadgets you want to add by clicking the Add gadget
button.
11. When you are done adding gadgets, click Close.
12. To find your new dashboard select your new dashboard from the dropdown Dashboard tab in the toolbar at the top of the page.
Recommended Gadgets
Assigned to Me - Displays all unresolved issues assigned to me
Activity Stream - Lists recent activity in a single project, or in all projects. You can add a filter to display only your projects.
Days Remaining in Sprint Gadget - Displays days remaining in a sprint (Wallboard capable)
Filter Results - Shows the issues/results for a saved filter. You can use filters others have created, or create your own from the Filters option in the top menu.
Watched Issues - Shows the issues watched by the current user.
