Jira / Sprints / Backlog

Why Jira?

• The aim of working in Jira is to document a list of tasks:

  • were have to start

  • are in progress

  • are completed

• Jira is not being implemented to track the time taken for a team member to complete a task. There is a time element to the process but this is used to ensure that we understand the teams usual capability in completing work within a set period.

Managing Tasks

• Tasks to be done are categorised in Jira as 'Issues'.

• In Jira, there are 3 issue types (Story, Task, Bug), however all issues that we will create in Jira should be defined as a ‘Story’ as this type has more functionality than the other types.

• When a story is created the following information is added to it:

  • Name

  • Description

  • Unique ID

  • Epic Category (Project ID)

  • Component Category (Work Type)

  • Assignee (Team Member doing the work)

  • Story Point (A value indicating the estimated time to complete the task) - See separate section

• Stories are created in the ‘Backlog’ by anyone (typically the person that knows most about the task).

• The 'Backlog' contains a number of buckets used to sort stories by status (planned / unplanned) and priority. Stories can be dragged from bucket to bucket… for further details see the list of backlog buckets below.

Sprints

• Stories are worked on during a ‘Sprint’ (a period of time with a start and end date). UX team sprints are of 2 weeks duration (starting on a Monday and finishing on a Friday).

• Prior to the sprint starting, the stories to be added are agreed during a short ‘Sprint Planning’ meeting involving team members.

• Each team member will have an agreed number of story points that can be added to a sprint and this determines the number of stories that are added to each sprint.

Story Points

Agreed story points per sprint

Backlog Buckets

Task (Story) Creation

Sprint Planning

Sprint Management