Tracking issues in Agile

[janet dutton]

Hi,

I am new to JIRA agile and have set up a board with a few planned sprints and all remaining issues in a product backlog.  However I would like to track my backlog and active sprints slightly differently.

1. Issues in the product backlog need to have separate statuses from active sprints e.g. there will be an initial status of 'suggestion' with issues moving through various stages until they reach a 'ready for development' status.

     2.  The first status in a sprint will be 'ready for development' to be tracked through to completion.

Therefore is it possible to have two different flows in the same board, one for active sprints and one for the backlog?

Any assistance is much appreciated!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The best way to think of this is that your boards are a "view" of a process, rather than a simple 1:1 representation of the process.

For any given issue, I would draw up a simple flow-chart of the process you want it to go through, with all the status you might need.  From what you've said, I would guess at something like 

• New issue that has been created but not looked at (backlog)
• In pre-development analysis (backlog)
• Ready for development (backlog, but on board for developers to pick up)
• in development (on board)
• in test
• done

If you build that as a workflow, then your issues will move through that naturally (remember to provide the options to go back, and remember that I've guessed at general processes, you probably have a lot more status to go through)

Now, your Agile board represents this by looking at status.  It is divided into columns, and you place each status into one of these columns.  So, as you have a pre-development cycle built into it, what you could do is have a board that does not even include the status "new" or "in pre-development analysis" at all.  Then issues in those status would not appear, and your first column really would be "ready for development"