How to manage sprints when Dev tasks are not testable due to dependencies from other teams

[Deep]

Hi All,

I joined a healthcare company recently and based on my interaction with the team's, QA is unable to test the Software tasks completed by Dev in the same sprint or even in the next sprint due to the dependencies from firmware teams. This typically happens in most HW/SW integration projects ex medical device with a mobile app integration.

So to fix this issue, QA is not involved in sprint planning and Software Dev is managing sprints by their own and completing their work. QA manages their own sprints and tests the stories when Firmware code is available. I am still learning how the releases happen if this is the case.

As my next steps of streamlining this process I am reaching out to this community to hear how they handle such projects where we have dependencies from Firmware or sometimes even from Hardware.

Some of the things I am planning are:

A) Having a custom field for every story to choose if there is any dependency (Yes/No) and if Yes, have a corresponding Jira task to track and ensure it is assigned to the right team and is being worked on. In this case how do we handle 'Definition-of-Done' during end of Sprint?

B)Define a board with 'Definition of done' when the tasks are moved to QA and track QA status items separately. This will help us run one sprint cycle for Dev and QA to collaborate better and not to work in silos which is happening currently.

Thank you for inputs in advance! Really appreciate your help.