standardize sprints across multiple teams

[JB Barnes]

Hi,

We have over 20 teams using the same sprint cadence, however, today each team (project) uses its own sprint naming convention that includes the project. We struggle with understanding work across teams. Does Jira standard support using one sprint naming convention (2022 Sprint 5) across multiple projects?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @JB Barnes 

Be advised that Jira does allow multiple sprints with identical names. It keeps track of them in the database with a unique ID.

However, having multiple sprints with the same name can be problematic. 

Sprints are initially created in a Board, but Jira doesn't restrict the issues that can be added to that sprint to only issues in that board.

A user can directly edit the sprint field of an issue to pick a sprint to which the issue will be added. When editing that field, if the sprints are named identically then the user may select a sprint that is associated to a different board.

A Sprint will display in any board where the filter for that board encompasses an issue in the sprint. So in the above, if I added an issue from the SCM board to the "Duplicated Sprint 41" sprint that was created in the CO-Sprint-A-2 board, then the SCM board would show the CO-Sprint-A-2 board's "Duplicated Sprint 41". If somebody edited the sprint name or dates, closed, or deleted the sprint, the change would be seen in both boards because the two boards would really be referencing one sprint entity. 

This can lead to a lot of confusion. 

In my experience keeping the Sprint names unique and including an element that identifies the Jira Project, board, or work team that uses the sprint is a way to do that.

If you are having trouble understanding work across the teams, you should explore that  to understand what the root problem is. Is the problem really with the sprint names being unique? How are you currently trying to understand the work across teams and why is unique sprint names making that difficult? Maybe there is a better way for you to see the work across team that does not require infringing on the sprint naming that the teams choose to use.

[JB Barnes]

Thanks @Trudy Claspill. I'm used to Rally and am just now learning Jira at a new company. In Rally we could have 1 sprint designation across multiple teams (a release train) where we could see all sorts of information across those teams. And yes, you are correct, the problem statement we have is that we struggle with making visible the work across teams, including dependencies and deliveries. When 3 teams are delivering work related to one product delivery to a client, it would be helpful to see ALL of their work as laid out in one sprint (or a series of upcoming sprints). The teams are already all on the same sprint cadence (two week) but each sprint has a different name, so I can't get a simple view of all the work. Is there a different way you would propose solving this problem given it sounds like Jira keeps sprint names at the project level and can't support one naming convention across multiple teams.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @JB Barnes 

I haven't ever used Rally, so I won't be able to provide a comparison to how it and Jira function differently.

To clarify, Sprints are not associated to Jira Projects. And you can choose any naming convention that you want. And you can choose to share sprints across multiple teams/boards. 

Sprints are created within Boards. Boards are a way to visualize and manipulate issues that are contained in Jira Projects. Boards use a filter (a query statement) to determine which issues to display in the board, and those filters can encompass issues from multiple projects.

If you want to see all the teams' sprints in one place, you could create a Saved Filter that encompasses all the issues from all their boards. You could then create a new board based on that Saved Filter. As I mentioned, a Board will show a Sprint if the Sprint contains issues that are in the scope of the Board's filter. So, if you create a filter that includes issues from all the team boards and build a new board from that, then it will show you all the sprints from all those boards.

This might not be the best solution, though. We need more information.

What is your role in the company? Are you a project manager, a scrum master, a developer, ...? What is the perspective that you are using when you are trying to aggregate data from multiple teams? Are there other people in your company in the same type of role that can share their experience with you?

How is the company using Jira Projects? Does each team have their own Project, or are they working from a shared Project?

Are the teams using Company Managed Project(s) or Team Managed Project(s)? When you view each team's project or board it will say which it is at the bottom left in the navigation pane.

What is the specific information you are trying to get?

There are varied solutions to the problem.

One overarching board showing all the sprints, as I described above, might be an acceptable solution.

The Roadmaps functionality might be a solution. However with the Standard version of Jira the Roadmap functionality can show information for only one project within the roadmap. In the Premium Jira version is the Advanced Roadmaps feature that would let you aggregate information from multiple projects (if your teams are working in separate projects and they are all Company Managed projects).

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/features/roadmaps?tab=basic

You can also find third party apps that you can integrate with Jira to get similar Roadmap functionality.

If you are trying to use Release Trains from the Scaled Agile Framework then you might want to look at another Atlassian product called Jira Align.

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/align/rte

If more is known about your use case, better advice can be provided.

[JB Barnes]

Thank you so much for all of this!  Very helpful! Thank you @Trudy Claspill !!

[Carlos Garcia Navarro · Accepted solution]

Hi @JB Barnes ,

I'd say it's up to the teams, but this other post may be helpful: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/Sprint-Naming-Convention/qaq-p/937904

[Carlos Garcia Navarro]

Another article that may help:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-jira-suggests-sprint-names-957140727.html

If you use scale agile practices, I'd recommend a reference to the Program Increment  in the sprint name to make sure the teams are aligned with their sprints. This is from a knowledge base article for Jira Align, an Atlassian tool that enables scaled agile practices:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Align-discussions/What-is-the-Jira-Align-automated-sprint-naming/td-p/1856809