Need help setting up Scrum Teams.

[Seth Frumkin]

In our company we work on Two types of projects.  Ideally we would have two project backlogs and one scrum team for each.  However, only half of our company specializes in one of the types.  The remaining half works on a combination of the two types, depending on priority and backlog.  What is the best way to set up a system where we have two scrum teams with simultaneous sprints pulling from one backlog AND to occasionally have people on both teams working on tasks within the same project?

[Phill Fox]

As Tom Proctor suggests you can have as many boards as you like working on your different projects. The way to do this is to define a filter for the board that only pulls across the items you want to display on a single board.

As you want two boards to share a common backlog you need to use the following criteria in your JQL to identify backlog items which are not yet in a sprint (the JQL will need to also contain the definition for your individual teams).

...OR sprint is EMPTY...

For example if I use a custom_field called team and it has two values Team A and Team B I can define two JQL statements as 

Team = "Team A" OR sprint is EMPTY

Team = "Team B" OR sprint is EMPTY

for my two Agile boards and then as I allocate issues to different teams they will appear on the appropriate board or remain in the shared backlog until allocated to a sprint.

An alternative to using multiple boards is to use a single board and to add two quick filters. Using the same method of identifying teams your quickfilter would be the same JQL as above. 

[Seth Frumkin]

I appreciate the answer although I'm an engineer not a software person.  I tried reading through this several times but I can't understand this enough to know what to do with it.

[Deleted user]

Suggest you setup one board to only include a single project/type ("half of our company specializes in one of the types")

and another board to include both projects/types ("The remaining half works on a combination of the two types")

[Seth Frumkin]

Thank you for the response.  That will not be ideal however because the first board will be all of our senior level people and the mixed board will be all of our lower level people.  We want to have one team as "works on project type A as a majority" and the second team as "works on project type B as a majority".  This way, for as many projects as possible, the mentors and trainees will be on the same teams.

In addition, this still leaves the question open of how to have two boards in the same project pulling from the same backlog and running simultaneous sprints.

[Deleted user]

There is no problem with two boards accessing the same project(s) with different sprints. Be aware however that when an issue is assigned to a sprint on one board, it will no longer appear on the other board since it's no longer in the shared backlog.

[Seth Frumkin]

Thanks again for the response.  Unfortunately though it doesn't seem that my backlog is working this way.

I created one project and 2 boards within the project.  The backlog is loaded with many issues.  I loaded and started a sprint on board 1.  When I go to baord 2, I can see that sprint.  When I load a sprint while on board 2, it won't let me start the sprint because I'm told there is already one in progress.  Additionally, when I go back to board 1, I also see the second sprint that I began loading while in board 2