How do you work with milestones?

[Hugo Winder]

I was just wondering, how do you implement milestones in your projects? Looking for a way of painting the big picture on the roadmap.

For example, September first, we want the MVP up and running. First I thought of using an epic, but the project part is bigger than just 1 epic. 

Any ideas how to visualize such a milestone on a roadmap?

(Yes, quite new to using roadmaps inside Jira)

Thanks!

Hugo

[Aradhana Gupta · Accepted solution]

Hi Hugo,

This feature request is gathering interest. You can read about it and vote for it here.

Until then there are workarounds in which this an be achieved, with addons, like structure (to create a milestone) or Big Picture that has this feature in built.

Or maybe you create an issue type called Milestone and link/associate features to it.

Thanks,

[Hugo Winder]

Voted! And will follow the request :)

Thanks

[bertrand.drouhard]

Hi Hugo,

You could use a Release for that, even if there is no real deployment associated with the release. 

[Anna-BigPicture]

Hi @Hugo Winder

Thank you @Marc - Devoteam for mentioning BigPicture. App apart from scheduling, managing, and tracking projects allows for tracking project milestones (represented as diamonds that do not have any duration) and quickly identifying them on the info bar.

In addition or instead, you can use markers to highlight important dates that call for special care and attention.

Please let me know if you would like to learn more.

[Hugo Winder]

Hi Anna,

Thanks! This looks like what I am looking for, I'll give this a try for a test project to see how it works out.

[Anna-BigPicture]

Hi @Hugo Winder

I am really happy to hear that you will give a try to BigPictre! In case you have any questions, just tag me in your post! I will do my best to clarify any doubts and provide you with answers!

[Hugo Winder]

Hi @Anna-BigPicture 

As a start, I signed up to the demo for this friday :)

[Curt Holley]

Hi @Hugo Winder 

What we do/have done is:

• Created a Milestone issue type
• Add the relevant milestones to the Epic as part of Planning
• Create a view in Advanced roadmaps that only shows the Epics and their milestones. 

This creates an easy to view Timeline (including which sprint the milestone is expected to occur in) see below.

[Marc - Devoteam]

HI @Hugo Winder 

This type of hierarchy requires an app. This could be the already mention option of Structure, but there are more options like BigPicture or Jira Advanced Roadmap and even more.

These options can be searched for on the Atlassian Marketplace, use search terms like portfolio or roadmap

Cheers,

Marc

[Thomas Hardin]

Hi Hugo, 

Unfortunately, there are no quick answers for this one in terms of a Roadmap view without and add-on, like Structure. I would also recommend that you keep the Milestone separate from your Epic>Story relationship. These issue types have a purpose and you want to keep it that way. 

I do like @bertrand.drouhard suggestion of using the Release as this can be tracked and reported on quite easily. And, anytime you can leverage base functionality, the easier things are. If you need to track more information on the Milestone and feel an issue type is the way to go, then I would suggest implementing a standard for establishing that relationship. Then use an issue link to connect that Milestone to you Epic or Story (relates to, supported by, etc). Now, I will say this from experience. If you do not set the standard early on, then you are opening yourself up to potential problems down the road. When we implemented the Milestone early on, we did not dictate how that relationship should be established. So, when we needed to report against the Milestone, it was almost impossible because teams would use different links types and they didn't connect to single issue type. We had to basically create this massive query to find everything in order to present the data. Not fun.

So, think about your downstream impacts when implementing this. That way, should you implement an add-on or attempt any type of reporting, it will be easy.

Hope this helps.

[Radka Svobodova]

Hi,

for visualisation of planned terms I am using combination of labels and epics - so if for the milestone are more epics needed to be finished give them the milestone label and in road map than you can use that filter for the label and se the targeted deadline.