Multiple teams and a single project or multiple projects

[csawai1]

Hello All,

Here is my requirement

I have multiple projects and a single core team. I want to split the team into 3 teams who will be working on the same backlog items.

I tried searching legit jira solutions, but couldn't find anything. I could see some work arounds but not sure what the cons are.

Plus most of the solutions are from 2013-14. I am using the latest version of classic board. NOT next gen

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @csawai1,

I always recommend people to look at boards as the home for work of a single team. Ideally, a team has one single board where all its current work can be scheduled and moved from to do towards done, visually.  Whether that should be a scrum or a kanban board is very much depending on the type of work (is your team responsible for defining and scheduling its own work up front eg versus is it handling incidents that come in as they occur, e.g.) and your internal planning processes.

Having separate boards for each team creates focus for your teams. They can see their work without being distracted by things they are not responsible for getting done. And - having separate boards also ensures that the out of the box reports (cumulative flow, velocity, sprint reports, burndown charts, etc) show you metrics specifically for your team. Which means you can detect bottlenecks in your team's daily operations much easier.

Having separate boards for your teams does not mean you have to put the issues in separate projects as well. Each board is populated with issues from a board filter (JQL), so you as long as you assign tickets to your teams, filters can cherrypick the right issues for them as you need:

Project = YourProject AND Team = "Team A"
Project = YourProject AND Team = "Team B"
Project = YourOtherProject AND Team = "Team B"

In this example, I have theoretically some issues for Team A in YourProject. Team B has other issues is YourProject as well and additionally some issues in YourOtherProject as well. The board filters for team A and B would look like this:

Team A

Team = "Team A"

Team B

Team = "Team B"

It is a good thing to see your boards and projects as different things. Where you organise your boards from the perspective of your teams, rather look at the projects from the type of issues you plan to put in them. Are you working on an application or a product? Great! Set up a project for that product or application and another project for another product or application. That way, all work for a single application ends up in 1 central place.

Hope this is some food for thought :-)

[Reuben]

Given an ART has multiple Product Teams, what are the advantages/disadvantages to using

1. one Jira Project for each ART Product Team

vs.

2. one Jira Project for all ART Product Teams, with one board dedicated to each Product Team

Additionally, which method works best with Jira Advanced Roadmaps?

[Tushar Sharma]

I also having similar problem .... In my project I have 5 teams delivering a shared outcome and each one having a requirement of using a their own custom workflow for stories. 

One chain of thought is to create multiple projects - one Jira project for each team - this gives them flexibility to manage their own workflows

other is to create just one Jira project for all the teams - which will enforce each one of them to use one type of story workflow

For Advanced Roadmaps, from what I have seen, we can pull together the issues form different boards / projects ... so assembling that view in advanced roadmaps will be agnostic to where we are pulling the info from. 

I am wondering, will it be a problem If I am trying to save/commit the plan to jira ? will Advanced Roadmap be able to commit changes to multiple projects ?

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Tushar Sharma ,

Advanced roadmaps is purpose built for working across multiple projects. So committing changes to multiple projects from within a single plan is no problem at all.

[benclohesy]

Create a Shared Team in Jira Advanced Roadmaps (JAR)

Create a filter in Jira that filters for the project + the team

You will then need to create a sprint for each of the teams if you want to track velocity on the individual team - which you'll probably need to do unless you're doing combined planning for all the teams (bad idea). 

You end up with something that works but the creation of multiple sprints each iteration is a total pain - I have three teams running in a 6 sprint program increment so have to create and manage 18 sprints over the PI - which works for the team but it's a bit of a mess for the admin/management - but... if you're serving the team, then just get on and do it :)

[Tom Powers]

Seems like when we force the teams to use a 'standard' workflow it goes against the agile value statement - Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.  In order to clarify  'over' does not mean 'instead of' which I believe many people interpret it to mean. Thus I think it is more accurately stated - Process and tools that enhance individuals and interactions.  I also believe the agile manifesto philosophically is written through the lens of a team, not all teams in a company.  That is all teams have the autonomy to master their team flow to around their purpose. 

As an agile company the Jira Admin focus or purpose should not be what is best for the 'Jira Admin'  rather what is best for the teams.  How does Jira enhance Teams individuals and interactions. To clarify Jira admin enhances individual team performances over Jira Admin performance