How To Guide: How to manage sprints across multiple boards

[#1]

In this guide we will look into behavior of the sprints and how they work together with the scrum boards.

Situation 1

Let's assume we have one project (name: Scrum project, key: SCR) with three issues and two scrum boards (SCR A board and SCR B board). These two boards use the same filter (project = SCR ORDER BY Rank ASC), which means the boards show the same set of issues.

• What happens, if we assign some issues to the sprint in the first board's backlog?
• Will this action affect the second board's backlog somehow?

Let's navigate to the board's backlog. In the beginning both backlogs look the same:

Create a sprint called Sprint 1. This newly created sprint is visible on the first board's backlog, but the second board's backlog remains unchanged.

Add all the three issues to Sprint 1. Now the sprint is visible on the both boards' backlogs.

Start Sprint 1 in the first backlog. Sprint 1 is started on the both boards' backlogs.

Conclusion

Sprints aren't dependent on a specific board or project. It's therefore possible for a sprint to be displayed in more than one board. It is still one entity though, and changes made to it in one board will be reflected in the other too.

Connection between issue and sprint is stored to issue's field called Sprint.

If issue is assigned to a sprint, this sprint is visible on all scrum boards, which show this issue.

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Situation 2

Let's continue, where the first situation ended (so we already have SCR project with two boards and sprint called Sprint 1), and let's create another project (name: Scrum project 2, key: SCR2) with three issues and one scrum board (SCR2 board). This board shows only issues from the second project (project = SCR2 ORDER BY Rank ASC).

• What happens, if we create sprint with the same name (Sprint 1) in the second project's backlog?
• What if we search for issues assigned to Sprint 1?

In the beginning there are no sprints in the second project's backlog.

It is possible to create another sprint with the same name Sprint 1 in the second project board's backlog. Let's assign the issues from SCR2 project to this newly created sprint.

If we search for issues assigned to Sprint 1, we get issues from both projects.

Conclusion

There can be multiple sprints with the same name. It is therefore recommended that sprint names indicate the project or board name, in order to avoid confusion. 

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Sprint identification

If you want to be 100% sure, with which sprint you are working, check the sprint's id (= sprint's unique identifier). There are more ways, how to obtain sprint's id.

Issue detail view

If issue is assigned to some sprint, you can get the sprint's id from the issue detail view (no matter if sprint is future, active or completed). Navigate to the issue and highlight over the sprint's name - you can see the sprint's id in the shown URL (id = 13)

Scrum board's backlog

After sprint creation you can view the issues assigned to the sprint in the issue navigator. The generated JQL for issue search contains sprint id (id = 13)

Scrum reports

You can also see the sprint id in the URL, if you navigate to the Sprint Report (select Reports in the left menu -> Sprint Report).

REST API

If you send GET request to the endpoint

/rest/agile/1.0/board/{boardId}/sprint

you get information about all sprints in the board (but you need to replace the parameter boardId with the id of the appropriate board)

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Situation 3

Let's continue, where the second situation ended. Let's assume we still have both SCR and SCR2 projects, 3 issues in each of them, and 3 boards (two for the first project and one for the second project). We create another sprint with name Sprint 2 and another 3 issues in SCR2 project and assign them to Sprint 2 in the second project board's backlog.

• What if we move this issue from the second SCR2 project to the first SCR project?

In the beginning Sprint 2 is visible only on SCR2 board.

If we move SCR2 issue assigned to Sprint 2 to the SCR project, Sprint 2 becomes visible on all the boards.

Conclusion

Once you move an issue, the sprint value remains the same. The same sprint can be visible on more boards.

If the same sprint is visible on more boards and you don't have sufficient permissions for all the projects, there can be several problems like it is not possible to

• start a sprint

• complete a sprint

• change order of sprints

If you want to work with a sprint, which includes issues from more projects, you need to have appropriate permissions for all the projects.

[Matt Doar]

In Situation 1, why did the second board only see Sprint 1 when you added all three issues to it? Why did the second board not see Sprint 1 when you added the first issue to it? 

[Hana Kučerová]

@Matt Doar I'm sorry about that, it didn't come to my mind, that it would be confusing. Of course, one issue with Sprint 1 is enough.

[Matthijs Damen]

@Hana Kučerová In situation 1, is there a way to force sprint 1 to show up on the second board without having an issue from the second board already in it?

Alternatively phrased, how can I add issues on the second board to sprint 1 if it doesn't show up yet?

[Hana Kučerová]

Hi @Matthijs Damen ,

>>> In situation 1, is there a way to force sprint 1 to show up on the second board without having an issue from the second board already in it?

I don't think there is any way.

>>>Alternatively phrased, how can I add issues on the second board to sprint 1 if it doesn't show up yet?

You don't need to use board to assign an issue to a sprint. You can for example do it in the detail of the issue (field Sprint).

[Rahul Kumar]

@Hana Kučerová : If i start sprint 1 in board A will it also start sprint in board B.

[Hana Kučerová]

Hi @Rahul Kumar . Yes, that is correct.

[Faten Afifi]

Hi,

I think I have same issue described above.

If I have one project and 2 boards (A &B) . Each board have its own components . So board A has issues with component a1 as an example. Board B has issues with component b1. Now I want create a sprint to be visible  for the 2 boards. 

I created the sprint 1 from board A.  Now I can move issues from backlog of board A to sprint 1 because sprint 1 is visible  from A.  Then I go to B later but I cannot move issues from B backlog to sprint 1 because it is not visible ??????????

As a work around I have to go to board A and create an issue in sprint 1 that has component b. So now sprint 1 is viable from board B.  

 Should the sprint be feasible to all the boards once it is created (when it is empty) ????  

[Hana Kučerová]

@Faten Afifi Sprint 1 cannot be visible on the second board, because your boards show different set of issues. I would recommend you to have only one board with both components and use quick filters to filter the issues. But I don't know your use case exactly.

[Arnaud Dusseldorp]

Is there an overview of all the sprints? And all the issues in that sprint from all boards and projects.

When Finishing a sprint the sprint contains xx issues Done and yy not Done. But I cannot find those issues. We have 30 projects and 50 boards ;-)

[Katrina Archer]

You say "Sprints aren't dependent on a specific board or project. It's therefore possible for a sprint to be displayed in more than one board. It is still one entity though, and changes made to it in one board will be reflected in the other too."

But the Roadmap feature on scrum boards in JIRA Cloud doesn't see things this way.

Board A has Sprint 1, and displays all project tasks. Board A's Roadmap will not display because there are too many tasks in the backlog.

So we make Board B, which displays tasks only for Component X.

But tasks for Component X assigned to Sprint 1 will not display on Board B's roadmap, because Sprint 1 was defined on Board A. If we create a sprint called "Sprint 1 - Component X" on Board B, and assign the tasks to that sprint, they will now display on the roadmap. But we don't want to have to manage custom sprints per board, as this messes with other project reporting.

[Hana Kučerová]

@Katrina Archer This tutorial has been created on the server version some time ago. Anyway, I can confirm the described behavior for the Roadmap functionality in the cloud version. From my opinion - it is not correct and I would expect to see the sprint data on the second roadmap too.

You can try to suggest this change to Atlassian, but personally I would recommend you to start using Advanced Roadmaps. There are so many more possibilities and the behavior is correct.

[Daisy A]

I seem to have the opposite issue. I have created Project with 4 separate boards and would like to maintain separation between them. Currently sprints and issues show in all board backlogs but I want to limit a sprint to one board. Is that possible under a single Project?