Can I selectively include the Objectives/Key Results in my Plan?

[Mukesh Panchal]

I'm trying to setup a plan in the portfolio. I created the plan by defining various projects as issue source, did not select any releases or issues to begin with. Then I started defining the Objectives for different projects. During that process I faced following issues:

1) Initially the Objectives created through the plan (using portfolio) were visible on the plan under scope. I then committed the changes. But the next time I logged into the plan the Objectives did not show. Our JIRA admin found that the 'IssueType' of Objective, Key Result were not defined for those projects hence they were not showing up in the plan. After including those IssueType previously defined objectives still did not show up but the new defined Objective shows up every time. Does anyone know the root cause?

2) While creating the Objective, all projects do now show up in the drop-down. What could be the potential cause? How do I create Objectives for projects that do not show up in drop-down?

In addition, I have following questions:

1) Can we selectively include the Objectives, Key Result in the Plan? If yes, how? Basically I would like to only include specific Objectives and not all, in the specific Plan.

2) Can we link a Story/Task directly to an Objective or Key Result or do we have to strictly follow the hierarchy i.e. Objective -> Key Result -> EPIC -> Story -> Task ? 

3) Can we link multiple EPICs/Stories to an Objective/Key Result and link one EPIC/Story to multiple Objective/Key Results i.e. is many-to-many relationship possible between EPICs/Stories and Objective/Key Result?

Appreciate if anyone has insight or solution to the above issues.

Thanks.

[Robin Klein]

Hi @Mukesh Panchal

I have been using OKRs in combination with Portfolio for Jira for the past 2 years.

The way I usually do this in Jira (with use of Portfolio for Jira and Script Runner) is by defining an OKR issue type in which you document the Objective and Key Results (so not as separate issue types).

Depending on your organization size and applied Agile scaling framework you can then decide to:

• Option A: position this issue types above the Epic level (so that Epics become your initiative to influence an OKR) 
  • Portfolio Hierarchy: OKR > Epic > Story
• Option B: position the OKR issue type above the out-of-the-box Initiative issue type. 
  • Portfolio Hierarchy: OKR > Initiative > Story

I usually define a separate project for the OKR issue type in which you maintain active OKRs. By using the Parent Link field, teams can link their initiatives / epics to the OKR.

Answer to question 1
If you use the Script Runner add-on you can use an issuefunction PortfolioParentsof() to filter on all issues of a team project that are linked to the OKRs. In that way you make a selection of OKRs to which the team contributes.

Answer to question 2 & 3
Since Portfolio allows only one Parent Link it's not possible to link multiple Epics / Initiatives to an OKR. And it's only possible to link to the next level in the Portfolio hierarchy. So it's not possible to link Story / Task directly to an OKR.

Regards,
Robin

[Margo Sakova - OKR Board for Jira by Oboard]

Hi @Mukesh Panchal 

Have you managed to finalize your setup?

1. "Initially the Objectives created through the plan (using portfolio) were visible on the plan under scope" - you need to make sure that OKRs are above in the issue hierarchy. This way, the epics will contribute to the OKRs' progress.



2. "While creating the Objective, all projects do now show up in the drop-down" - the hierarchy works with company-managed projects, not the team-managed ones. So it may be one of the reasons.

If you're still exploring setups, consider these 4 methods to configure Jira for OKRs, detailed in my guide.