Need help setting up Scrum Teams.

Question

In our company we work on Two types of projects.  Ideally we would have two project backlogs and one scrum team for each.  However, only half of our company specializes in one of the types.  The remaining half works on a combination of the two types, depending on priority and backlog.  What is the best way to set up a system where we have two scrum teams with simultaneous sprints pulling from one backlog AND to occasionally have people on both teams working on tasks within the same project?

Seth Frumkin · Answer

I appreciate the answer although I'm an engineer not a software person.  I tried reading through this several times but I can't understand this enough to know what to do with it.

Seth Frumkin · Answer

Thanks again for the response.  Unfortunately though it doesn't seem that my backlog is working this way.

I created one project and 2 boards within the project.  The backlog is loaded with many issues.  I loaded and started a sprint on board 1.  When I go to baord 2, I can see that sprint.  When I load a sprint while on board 2, it won't let me start the sprint because I'm told there is already one in progress.  Additionally, when I go back to board 1, I also see the second sprint that I began loading while in board 2

Phill Fox · Answer

As Tom Proctor suggests you can have as many boards as you like working on your different projects. The way to do this is to define a filter for the board that only pulls across the items you want to display on a single board.

As you want two boards to share a common backlog you need to use the following criteria in your JQL to identify backlog items which are not yet in a sprint (the JQL will need to also contain the definition for your individual teams).

...OR sprint is EMPTY...

For example if I use a custom_field called team and it has two values Team A and Team B I can define two JQL statements as

Team = "Team A" OR sprint is EMPTY

Team = "Team B" OR sprint is EMPTY

for my two Agile boards and then as I allocate issues to different teams they will appear on the appropriate board or remain in the shared backlog until allocated to a sprint.

An alternative to using multiple boards is to use a single board and to add two quick filters. Using the same method of identifying teams your quickfilter would be the same JQL as above.