Does enabling parallel sprints in one project cause issues for boards that do not want || sprints??

Question

I have several projects running on different boards for different teams across Jira. Only one of my teams/projects wishes to use parallel sprints. Since the feature is global, I am wondering if turning on parallel sprints will impact those projects that do not want to take advantage of this feature?

Earl McCutcheon · Answer

Hi @Kristiina Arnold ,

When you enable Parallel Sprints, it allows a new sprint to be started when one is already in progress, as a global change so all teams could have the option to start additional sprints while one is already active.  However, it is optional at this point so a team that only wants to run single sprints can still do so.  They will just need to verify that the previous sprint is complete before progressing to the next sprint.

Regards,
Earl

Kristiina Arnold · Answer

Hi Earl,

did I get this right - does it mean that even if all the other teams are going on with starting just one sprint at a time, they also
- can´t move incomplete issues directly to the next sprint
- can´t see their own velocity

And the alignment for estimation practices has to be done for all teams company wide using the same Jira setting?

Or is it only for the one team that starts parallel sprints from one board?

Thanks Kristiina

Earl McCutcheon · Answer

Hi Heather,

As you noted Parallel sprints is a global setting so it will apply to all boards, so if you are going to enable the setting it would come down to internal processes per team as to wether on not to run multiple sprints at the same time.

The things to consider when the feature is enabled is covered in "Using parallel sprints", noting:

when using parallel sprints:

* The Velocity Chart will not show the velocity per team.
* The current implementation assumes that the teams perform estimation identically, which is unlikely in practice.

AND

When completing an active sprint with incomplete issues, you can't directly move these incomplete issues to another active sprint. You need to move these issues to the backlog first, and then you can add the issues to the active sprint.

So if these features are something the teams uses regularly, a change to process would need to be considered to align between the teams so there are no conflicts.  Especially noting the portion "assumes that the teams perform estimation identically, which is unlikely in practice" so aligning estimation practices would be a major focus in the change.

Regards,
Earl