Trouble breaking down work from very large projects to small tasks, cross projects/teams

Question

Our product team could use some help understanding the best way to set up a software project and/or product discovery and/or project management boards. Here’s where we are struggling:

* Take very large product initiatives and breaking them all the way down to bite sized iterative work

* Tracking that work all across multiple teams

* Prioritizing work on the team, and against other teams' work

* Presenting this information in a digestible way to stakeholders

I’m thinking of a flow chart that explains how to organize things in Jira from way above the epic level, down to tasks.

This is how we currently have it setup now, but it's not working perfectly:

Jira Product Discovery "Idea" > Multiple "epics" under that idea > Multiple "stories" or "tasks" under those epics.

The problem is that each development team has their own "project - software development" board. So, we aren't able to see multiple things teams are working on all in one place.

Nataliya Vasyliv_Reliex_ · Answer

Hi @Dee Bernier

If you are looking for a solution to see all small tasks from different projects on one board I can suggest ActivityTimeline plugin.

You can select multiple teams and schedule the tasks between users-teams in one timeline view:

Managers and team members can easily access important data related to their workload and capacity with the multi-functional indicator. Plugin delivers wide visualization in order for you to comprehend how to manage your teams more effectively.

We can provide a demo session for you if needed.

Best, Nataliya

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Dee Bernier

In addition to Trudy's ideas...

For such a large initiative, I recommend starting with a project liftoff/formation to create a user story map (or journey map) such as described by Jeff Patton in his writings.  That will help with many of the early steps of ideation to small, releasable pieces for early value delivery, and releases selection.  That process could done with a physical map or in a collaboration tool, such as Miro or Lucid.  Once completed, this map can also act as a discussion/progress tool for cross-team prioritization and frequent coordination, and online maps can often be updated with Jira dynamically.  There are also Jira and Atlassian Marketplace options for such visibility tools once the work is clarified a bit; please see Trudy's recommendations for those tools.

For more information about these ideas, please check in with your Jira Admin and any team Agile Coaches.

Kind regards,
Bill

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

I have not worked with Product Discovery yet, so factor that in when considering my response.

Are your development teams using Company Managed projects or Team Managed projects?

Are your teams using standardized configurations (workflows, issue types, fields/screens) or are they using multiple team-specific customizations? Are they working in Scrum or Kanban or both?

Depending on how you need to manipulate and view the information, it may be as simple as creating a Board that encompasses the issues across the multiple teams' projects.

If that doesn't meet your needs, and if your teams are using Company Managed projects and are using standardized configurations, then you might want to look at upgrading to the Premium plan to get access to Advanced Roadmaps. That feature gives you the ability to extend the issue hierarchy above Epic. You could go from Ideas > Epics to Ideas > Initiatives > Epics, or even more layers. (I assume Product Discovery isn't limited to the Ideas > Epics relationship.)

That would also give you options for seeing cross-team/cross-project work on roadmaps.

There are other third party apps that provide similar functionality.

If your teams are using Team Managed projects, Advanced Roadmaps is not available for use with those types of projects.

If you are a large company and your teams are using Agile methodologies (scrum and kanban) you might want to investigate how you can implement SAFe at your company.

You might also want to consider engaging with an Atlassian Partner to assess your company's processes and get some advise on how to implement changes to satisfy your needs.

(Full disclosure: I work for an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner.)