What is the best practice for managing related dependent issues in a Sprint

[Misty Meyers]

It is understood that it is not best practice to create stories which are not independently testable. Unfortunately, my team tends to create Stories which must be all be completed in order for code to deploy, and QA to commence.  Additionally, there is an expectation that when an item hits the "awaiting deployment to QA" column, that QA then request the deployment. However, because there are dependencies between stories, it is a challenge for QA to know, without a lot of manual steps, when all the pieces are ready?

We have discussed yet another column, or adding an additional link type, prerequisite or dependency, or similar. Then potentially we can automate the movement of the work item to the next status when all stories share the same defined status. What is the best way to manage this dilemma using Jira?

Thoughts? Best practices? Reading references?
Thank you!

[Ste Wright]

Hi @Misty Meyers 

I'd consider some things here...

• E2E Flow: Look for where improvements in the flow can be made - for example, can Stories be written which can move to QA independently? 
• Sprint DoD: Consider if the QA and/or deployment should be in the sprint - or if the last status in the sprint should be prior to this. For example, I've seen teams where completion of QA is "Sprint Done" - and the deployment to Production is only done every 2-4 weeks, and managed from the Release Hub, a Dashboard, etc, separate to sprints.
  • You can set "Sprint Done" by adding whatever status is deemed "Done" to the last column, with a green line in it. Remove the other, later statuses from the board.

^ I think I'd look at these two first, before looking at an automation rule, or more statuses, etc.

What do you think?

Ste