Share issue in multiple sprints?

Question

A client is interested in have a "Meta" sprint that allows managers view certain issues. Those issues are also contained in other projects' sprints. This allows the mangers to have a view to global issues being worked on while the users can still access them.

We noticed that it was not possible to have an issue in multiple sprints across multiple boards. We are using JIRA 6.0 and was wondering if this is available in figure JIRA versions, or maybe there is another way we can express this using JIRA Agile.

unknown · Answer

We have an overall view board where we can see all the issues in progress across multiple sprints.   It is simply a matter of creating a sprint board with a filter that selects the issues that aregoing to be in the other sprints on the working boards.   Then, when the a sprint starts in a working board, it magically appears in the overall view board.

You need to be careful not to create a sprint in the overall view board - that makes things get messy, because you can only _create_ one active sprint per board, and an issue can only be in one sprint.   This means that if you create a sprint in the overall board and put issues in it, they are no longer available for being in the sprints that you are using operationally.   Similarly, it  can be a trap to use the overall view board to put issues in and out of sprints from the other boards that it is showing you ... it will let you do that, but the logic of what issue can be in what sprint can get messed up if you haven't carefully set it up to make sense.

Summary: if you want an overall view of many sprints (from multiple boards), just set up a sprint board with a filter that selects all the issues from those many boards.

However, it is a long piece of rope to hang yourself with if you use overall view board for changing things  - better to use just for looking, unless you know what you are doing.

(Footnote: An example of how you can get messed up is if the overall view board has a superset filter of all the other boards, which most likely it does.   In this case, it will show you all the issues from all the other boards, and all their sprints.   You _will_ be able to use the overall board to put an issue into a sprint from a board on which that issue is not visible!    This is "Not Good"(TM).   If you want to manage multiple sprints on an overall view, you need to have the _same_ filters on all the managed boards, and just select the issues differently for their individual sprints.  This is perfectly valid, but I think it's a more unusual or uninuituitive setup).

unknown · Answer

We have an overall view board where we can see all the issues in progress across multiple sprints.   It is simply a matter of creating a sprint board with a filter that selects the issues that aregoing to be in the other sprints on the working boards.   Then, when the a sprint starts in a working board, it magically appears in the overall view board.

You need to be careful not to create a sprint in the overall view board - that makes things get messy, because you can only _create_ one active sprint per board.   But a board can be set up to _view_ sprints from many other boards.   Similarly, it is a trap to use the overall view board to put issues in and out of sprints that it is showing you ... it will let you do that, but the logic of what issue can be in what sprint will get messed up.

Summary: if you want an overall view of many sprints, just set up a sprint board with a filter that selects all the issues from those many sprints.  Do not use this overall view board for changing things, just for looking.

Karie Kelly1 · Answer

We do something similar by creating a kanban board specifically for that manager(s).  We create a filter that pulls in all issues currently assigned to a version (I believe you can do sprint as well) that are not closed out.  Then, we do quick filters or swimlanes based on the product or project.