How to manage several teams across multiple projects

[Andres Rodriguez]

Good Morming,

Here is our situation, we are managing a total of 7 sw teams across multiple projects. Each of these projects have their own sprint cadence, defects and epics. We want to be able to manage, monitor, and report in a single plan view and Kanban board all of our stories and tasks from these multiple projects. 

In my understanding we have two options:

1- Create a new Generic Project and submit all our stories and subtasks in there, and link these stories to the epics across the multiple projects.

2-Do not create an additional Generic Project, and instead create stories across the multiple projects as needed.

I would like to understand which would be the best approach, since in my understanding both can support/rely on Advanced Roadmap Plan View to monitor multiple and different timelines in a single view, and a Board of multiple projects in a single Kanban view.

I am concerned on:

-Propeley monitoring and differentiating each team's tasks and Stories

-Handling sprints since all the projects unfortunately do not share same cadence.

-Other features/capabilities Jira can support such as reports (sprint capacity, burndown charts, etc), and even automation feature (for instance, creating automated standard stories and tasks based on Epic transitions from each Project)

Hope someone could provide some guidance on how we should proceed.

Thanks!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Your projects should be determined by how you want to use the issues within them.  Permissions for people to do things in the project, issue types, fields and workflow are the most important things to consider in a project.

You then need to work out how to filter the issues across all your projects by the team that should be handling it and then create a board for each team (you can usually draw a direct equivalence between a team and a board).  The board does all the sprint capacity, burndown, sprint planning etc with the team.

Finally, you probably want to automate your standard tasks from Epics - use Automation or a scripting tool to do that.

[Evgenii]

Hi, @Andres Rodriguez 

Given your situation of managing multiple software teams across different projects with varying sprint cadences, defects, and epics, I would recommend the following approach to effectively manage, monitor, and report on your stories and tasks in Jira:

1. Use separate projects for each team/project: Instead of creating a generic project, it is better to have dedicated projects for each team or project. This ensures clear ownership, better visibility, and more granular control over each team's tasks, stories, and sprints.

2. Utilize Advanced Roadmaps for cross-project planning: Jira's Advanced Roadmaps (formerly known as Advanced Roadmaps for Jira or Portfolio for Jira) can provide the capability to monitor and plan across multiple projects in a single view. You can create a plan that includes all the relevant projects and epics, and visually track the progress and timelines of each team's work.

3. Configure boards for each team/project: Set up separate boards for each team/project using Jira's Agile boards (Scrum or Kanban boards). This allows you to track and manage the team-specific stories, tasks, and defects within their respective boards. Each board can have its own workflow, sprint cadence, and configurations tailored to the needs of the team.

4. Use filters and quick filters for consolidated views: Jira provides powerful filtering capabilities. You can create custom filters to consolidate stories and tasks from multiple projects into a single view. Additionally, you can use quick filters to quickly switch between different teams or projects within a board.

5. Leverage Jira reporting and automation features: Jira offers a range of reporting features, including sprint capacity, burndown charts, velocity tracking, and more. These features can provide valuable insights into each team's progress and help with monitoring and reporting. Additionally, you can use Jira's automation capabilities (with tools like Jira Automation or ScriptRunner) to automate tasks such as creating standard stories or tasks based on epic transitions across projects.

By following this approach, you can maintain separate projects for each team while utilizing Advanced Roadmaps, boards, and Jira's reporting and automation features to monitor and report on the overall progress and timelines in a consolidated manner.

[Danut M _StonikByte_]

Hi @Andres Rodriguez,

This article from our blog might be of great help for you: How to track multi-team or scaled-agile projects (such as SAFe®) in Jira with Great Gadgets app.

As you will see, with our Great Gadgets app you can each individual team, but also the global release even if the sprints are not aligned between teams. 

It is enough to have a filter with the issues of all teams (representing the release scope), and you can configure the Release Burndown Chart gadget and the Kanvan Velocity chart gadget to use this filter. Thus, you will have the burndown and the velocity chart at the global level displayed on your dashboard.

This app offers many other gadgets that you will find useful. If you have questions, don't hesitate to contact us at support@stonikbyte.com.

Thank you,

Danut Manda