Sprint, Release and Quarter Planing

Question

Using Jira cloud (premium), how do you plan your sprints, releases and the near future (let's say a high-level planning for the next quarter) when you need be able at (preferably) the same view to:

* View Timeline of the Sprint/Release/Quarter
* See and assign stories/tasks to teams
* See teams remaining availability / workload as you assign the work

Is there a way to do it using only Jira native...no apps?

If not, do you have an experience as a user with an app which includes all the above?

Mary from Planyway · Answer

Hi @yanivlt

It's Mary from Planyway: workload, roadmap, time tracking

When planning sprints, releases, and high-level plans for the next quarter using Jira Cloud (Premium), there are several built-in features and strategies you can utilize to manage your projects efficiently. However, achieving a unified view that encompasses all your requirements—timeline visualization, story/task assignment to teams, and viewing team availability—can be challenging using only Jira's native features. Let's break down the possibilities:

Using Jira Native Features

* Roadmaps: Advanced Roadmaps is part of Jira Software Premium and provides a way to plan and track projects across multiple teams and projects. You can create plans that show issues and epics across a timeline, helping with high-level planning. However, it might not offer detailed insights into individual team member availability or workload directly on the roadmap.

* Boards and Sprints: For sprint planning, Jira Boards are the go-to. You can create sprints, assign stories/tasks to these sprints, and manage the workload during sprint planning sessions. Boards offer a way to see what each team is working on, but they do not directly show remaining availability or workload without digging into individual issues or using reports.

* Reports: Jira offers various reports (e.g., velocity chart, sprint report) that can help gauge team capacity and performance over time. While useful for planning, they are more retrospective and don't offer a real-time view of team availability.

* Filters and Dashboards: By creating specific filters and dashboards, you can tailor views that might help in visualizing some aspects of your planning needs, such as which team is working on what. However, this would be more for tracking purposes rather than planning with visibility into future availability.

Limitations and Workarounds

* Visibility into Team Availability: Jira natively focuses more on issue tracking and project management rather than resource planning. There's no built-in feature that directly shows team member availability or workload in a way that integrates seamlessly with sprint/release planning views.
* External Apps: Given the limitations of Jira's native features for your specific needs, many teams turn to Marketplace apps that integrate with Jira to fill these gaps. Apps like Planyway offer enhanced planning capabilities, including resource management, workload overview, and more advanced project planning tools. These can provide the unified view of timelines, assignments, and team capacities you're looking for.

Nikola Perisic · Answer

Hello @yanivlt

From my experience I can tell that for the sprints, usually I would use a Release Burndown chart, assigning the tasks to the teams using the Jira normally (regular process of assigning issues).

For the workload, I would also use a workload pie chart dashboard (seems more intuitive), as I can filter out by the assignees.