Use Leaderboard Rollups in Jira to drive projects to completion

Leaderboard Rollups are one of the most effective ways of driving projects to completion. They provide succinct, exec-level views of projects, as well as accurate views of what frontline teams are working on and what needs to get done. They allow managers to see how they're performing relative to their peers, creating a sense of friendly competition . And because the rollup uses the same data at all levels of management, it's 100% consistent from the top level exec down to the IC doing the work.

From a program management perspective, the Leadership Rollup can help identify who to contact when deadlines are near or help cleanly escalate when there are conflicting priorities.

 

At LinkedIn, we have used leadership rollups to manage some of our key projects for years. The ability to organize JIRA tickets based on a leader or a manager has been crucial in the successful execution of large horizontal projects. These include massive migration efforts, compliance and security initiatives, and company-wide programs. It allows us to review team or org tickets in staff meetings and escalate through the right hierarchy, if needed. It is a must-have tool for any program manager or leader.

Afshin Ganjoo

Head of Technology Platforms Technical Program Management at LinkedIn

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What goes into a Leaderboard Rollup?

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A Leaderboard is based on your organizational hierarchy. Each Leaderboard is focused on one person and will contain all issues assigned to anyone who reports up to them from any level in the org. Those issues will be grouped by the direct reports of the current leader. These are shown as "manager rollup rows" in the Leaderboard table. Each row is split by issue attribute, typically to give a sense of the overall issue workflow. For instance, in the example above, issues are split by Status into "To Do", "In Progress", and "Done". The pie chart shows the overall issue distribution.

To drill up into higher level rollups, you can click in the "Manager Chain". This sets the Leaderboard to a higher level manager. To drill down the org, click on a manager's name in the Leaderboard table.

Clicking on a pie slice or a cell in the manager rollup table displays the corresponding issues.

Creating a Leaderboard

Traditionally, a program manager or project lead will manually create a single leaderboard for the head of an organization, and this will be discussed as part of a weekly/monthly review. There are a variety ways of doing this, but ultimately it involves selecting all issues that roll up into the direct reports of the exec (see How to Select All Users Rolling up to a Manager in Jira).

An easier way is to use the OrgJQL plugin. While OrgJQL's main feature is selecting all users who roll up to a manager, it also comes with a free Leaderboard Gadget that you can add to any Jira dashboard. To configure this gadget, create a dashboard, and then search for "OrgJQL Leaderboard". A basic configuration requires three things:

  • A title for your leaderboard
  • The JQL for the issues in this leaderboard
  • The name for the highest ranking manager this board will display

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Using Leaderboards

Leaderboards are effective in a range of situations:

  • Exec Level Review: The Leaderboard is excellent for conveying high level overviews of key initiatives during exec reviews. And because the direct reports of the org lead attend these meetings, they can speak to any questions about their row in the manager rollup table.
  • Preparing for Exec Level Review: Everyone attending an exec review can see a version of the Leaderboard that's pertinent to them and can similarly ask their reports to ensure that all issues are up to date and any discrepancies explained.
  • Managing Horizontal Projects: Program managers can identify teams that aren't completing assigned tasks and can send reminders or escalate as necessary.
  • Sprint planning: A Leaderboard can give a first line manager a complete view of the tasks their teams is responsible for and can keep this work visible during sprint planning.
  • Team status meetings: Including a Leaderboard in a team status meeting is an efficient way of showing everyone's status in a single view. Teams can focus on specific problems instead of giving generic round-table updates.

Takeaways

  • Leaderboard Rollups help drive projects to completion by promoting friendly competition among teams and providing a way for program managers to ping managers or cleanly escalate
  • Leaderboard Rollups are effective in a range of settings such as exec level reviews, sprint planning, managing horizontal projects, and team status meetings.
  • While you can create Leaderboard Rollups manually,  OrgJQL can create Leaderboard gadgets automatically in your Jira dashboard

OrgJQL is available from the Atlassian marketplace. Try it today for free.

 

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