Ranking of Epics in one plan affects ranking of Epics in others

[JA]

Hello,

We have one main plan our leadership team uses to prioritize Epics that come in as part of our project intake process. We have various other plans also based on team or squad where project leads are also prioritizing the same Epics, within their team/squad. What's happening is that when teams/squads are prioritizing their Epics, it changes the rank of Epics in the larger main plan. This is problematic because leadership has them prioritized the way they want, and then things get rearranged by the time they view the plan the following week.

Is there a way to avoid this from happening? It would be nice if we could lock the prioritization in place for a specific plan or something but not seeing anything out there on this. 

Thanks in advance for any help!

Justine

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @JA,

That observation is correct. The reason behind this, is that your Epics are unique issues in Jira. While you may have your epics appear in multiple plans, updating their ranking impacts the one unique ranking they have in Jira, behind the scenes. And so yes, reranking them in one plan does affect other plans. That cannot be avoided.

Organisations working at a certain scale sometimes use a ranking system that is not depending on the issue ranking of a tool like Jira, like WSJF (Weightest Shortest Job First). Basically, they apply a ranking system of their own, adding it to a custom field in Jira and allowing that to be used for sorting instead.

Hope this helps!