Ways to track coding and testing in different sprints

Nathan Harrison_daka9w

Hi everyone,

I'm new here but thankful I found such a knowledgable group as we move along our Agile journey.

We have a ...well... different situation.  I am aware that what I am about to write is not pure Agile but upper management has determined this is the way we need to track and Jira Align is the tool.  We have an outside vendor doing coding for us this shipping code at the end of the sprint.  Our internal company test teams (multiple groups) then take the code in the next sprint to perform our functional/regression testing.  

The question is how do I track this in Align? 

The prevailing thought is a different user story for the vendor in sprint one.  Sprint two would consist of a user story for each test team.  (wow. that would be a lot of overhead just to set up) 

Is there not a way to have a parent story then the ability to have children for the test teams to test against?  this way the progress for the parent could be tracked in total.   Separate stories just seems like overkill. 

Thanks in advance.  I know this is outside the box so thoughts or guidance is much appreciated. 

Nathan

Peter Jessen

Hi @Nathan Harrison,

You are certainly correct that this is not agile. :-)

As I am sure you are aware, there is no such thing as a parent story having children stories in agile; therefore, there is no such thing in Jira Align either.

Question: How are you tracking the external vendor code? Are they in your Jira instance? It sounds like this might be the case from your comment "The prevailing thought is a different user story for the vendor in sprint one."

If your vendor stories aren't in Jira (and also in Jira Align), then:

• I recommend you use External Dependencies to track the delivery of the external supplier code to your teams.
• The dependency would be from your test teams through the feature the code is meant to enable
• Your teams would then simply have (very non-agile) test-only stories in sprint 2 tied to the same feature.

If your vendor stories (and the vendor) are in Jira (and also in Jira Align), then:

• I recommend you use a regular Team Dependency to track the delivery of the  supplier code to your teams.
• The dependency would be from your test teams through the feature the code is meant to enable.
• The vendor team (in Jira/JA) would be the dependent upon team and would link its stories to the dependency.
• Your teams would then:
  • simply have (very non-agile) test-only stories in sprint 2 tied to the same feature OR
• You could enable the post-Product Owner Story Acceptance states of In Delivery and Delivered functionality in your JA instance.
  • This provides the ability to track additional testing of stories and features past normal Product Owner Acceptance. These states DO NOT currently sync with any related Jira states at this time.
  • You could also enable a story-level developmental value stream to provide process step tracking functionality. The team testing post-vendor delivery can be mapped to the In Delivery and Delivered states.
  • You will need to speak with your Jira Align Administrator or your Jira Align integrator to enable this advanced functionality.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any additional questions.

Regards,
Peter