Keep backlog issue ranking in the sprint kanban board ?

[Alex Aubert]

I have a backlog prioritized by rank (order in the list) that refers to epics ranked in the roadmap.

When I start a sprint with those issues, and group issues in the board by epics, the order of either issue or epics is completely random. Or at least I couldn't find any logic. It is not the rank of issue in the backlog, and it is not the rank of the epics in the roadmap.

That's a bummer cause we carefully prioritize or work before each sprint, but when we start working on an iteration, those priorities are not visible in the sprint board...

Am I missing something? Thanks!

[Petter Gonçalves · Accepted solution]

Hello Alex,

Thank you for reaching out.

Since you mentioned that you are using a Roadmap for your Epics, I believe you are talking about a Next-gen project. Right?

if that's correct, we were able to reproduce this same behavior with all the options under the "Group by" menu. Basically, once you group your issues in a next-gen board, they stop to be displayed in the Rank order as expected.

We have reported a bug about that here:

- The next-gen "Group by" feature is not displaying the swimlanes in the issues' order

Feel free to vote and watch the bug to receive notifications about any updates.

For now, the only workaround we can offer you would be to create a Classic board and edit its filter to manage your next-gen issues but keeping the next-gen board you have to keep using the roadmap feature.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Alex Aubert]

Hi Petter,

Thanks for your reply. I'm completely stunned that this bug priority is evaluated as "low" (= won't fix) as working on the right issue in the right order (= the most important ones) is the spine of an agile team.

Why do we prioritized issues in the sprint backlog if this is not properly shown in the very screen the team is working on?

I mean that is just sooo important. What do you think?

Thanks anyway.

Alex

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello Alex,

Thank you for your feedback.

I completely agree with you that the ability to use the rank field in the board swimlanes would be more than useful depending on the way you are handling your issues.

I just would like to point out that this bug is current in a "Low" priority because it is a relatively new reported bug with a lower number of affected customers (until now), however, it does not mean it will not get fixed.

In fact, the Next-gen project template is a new feature in JIRA Application which is currently being improved to achieve the required features by our customers and our developers are current tracking every behavior that does not work as expected, acknowledging that bugs have more impact in the customer usability than missing features.

That being said, I have added this question in an internal comment so our developers can be notified about your feedback since it is unquestionably relevant to measure the impact of such behavior. Also, feel free to provide your comments in the mentioned bug giving any other details on how it is impacted you, in case you have any other details to add.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Alex Aubert]

Hello Petter,

Thank you very much for this clarification.

I'd like to add that the problem affects also epics: epics are prioritized in the roadmap screen, but when I group issues by epics in the sprint board, epics swimlanes are ordered by their key number.

Should I add it to the bug? Or it is a completely different thing?

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello Alex,

Thank you for the provided information.

In fact, we are aware that this behavior also affects the Epic swimlane. As you can see in the steps to reproduce it at the bug description, we mention that the "group by" functionality is not applying the rank order for Epics and sub-tasks swimlanes. P.S: I'm currently testing if the same problem happens when grouping issues by assignee too.

Again, thank you very much for taking the time to give your feedback. It will definitely help us better prioritize the bug and track other community users having the same impact because of this lack. 

Let me know if you still have anything we can help with. :)