Can Easy Agile Roadmaps handle dependencies?

[Evelin]

Let's say we have the epics A, B, C and D.  A and C can be worked in parallel, but it makes no sense to start B if A isn't finished.

Can I handle such dependencies in Easy Agile Roadmaps?

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_ · Accepted solution]

Hi Evelin!

We don't yet have a feature to display dependencies in Easy Agile Roadmaps, but we're keen to learn more about your use case!

• What level of planning does your roadmap visualise? A single team, a product or project, a team of teams, a program or portfolio of work?
• Ideally, how would you like that dependency to be displayed? We've used connecting lines in another app that are coloured to represent healthy/blocking dependencies; would this meet your needs?
• Would it be helpful or not to automatically move epic B if epic A is delayed, or just show a warning about the breaking dependency?

- Stephanie Seymour, Easy Agile

If you'd like to contact me by email, feel free to reach out at support@easyagile.com. 

[Evelin]

Hi Stephanie,

To answer your questions:

• We like to visualize two levels: 1 - epics of one project, and 2 - projects that we like to work at during the next year or so. I'm using project as a general term here. It can be the new version of an exiting product, stuff that is completely new, or even research - all of them cost personnel resources (which are limited).
• The connecting lines that you describe would meet our needs, yes.
• Moving dependend objects automatically would be helpful, yes. If a dependency breaks, a warning would be good, and a decision Move / Don't move. (I'm not sure if this will work out. The point is that some projects can be moved to a later time but others can't, and you need to be aware of this when rearranging them.)
• But to see the dependencies at all would be a big advantage already. Moving dependencies automatically is no must.

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_]

Thanks for your feedback, Evelin!

I've made a note that dependencies and warnings about dependency health are the priority, as well as your comment about providing the option to move problem issues instead of moving them automatically.

Dependency links aren't on our short-term roadmap but I'll reach back out to you when we do have this feature available for you to try!

- Stephanie Seymour, Easy Agile

[Nikolaus Basic]

Hi Stephanie,

+1 for dependencies with conecting lines (End to Start, End to End, Start to End, Start to Start) and warnings. Moving should be manual, or at least with undo.

BR,

Nik

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_]

Hi Nikolaus,

We are currently considering using Jira's "issue link" field, such as "blocks" or "is blocked by" to handle dependencies. Creating or deleting dependency lines on the Roadmap would then modify these fields. Additionally, if there are already issue links on your issues, these would pre-populate on the Roadmap.

Can I get a little more context about what "End to End" and "Start to Start" connecting lines would be used for? If Epic B depends on Epic A, would that be a "End to Start" line?

- Stephanie Seymour, Easy Agile

[Tobias Dörnbach]

Hi Stephanie,

quickly hooking in here, using Jira's "issue link" field sounds like a great addition which I would definitely appreciate. Even simple one-way population of such dependency lines from the issue link field would be good to have already.

In my understanding and usage, "A is blocked by B" would be an end-to-start dependency, but I see that this may definitely differ per user and project.

Cheers,
Tobi

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_]

Hi Tobi, thanks for your feedback!

By one-way population, does that imply seeing dependencies that already exist but without being able to create new ones on the roadmap? I can see how this could make it easier for us to release this feature incrementally.

I've added another vote on your behalf to this issue. We're currently categorising this work as "Thinking about": we're gathering feedback like yours on how we can best go about providing value to customers and weighing it against other valuable tasks.

- Stephanie Seymour, Easy Agile

[Tobias Dörnbach]

Hi Stephanie,

thanks for taking this into account!

Yes, in my opinion it would be already helpful to simply show dependencies in the Roadmap which have been created using the "issue link" field - so for you guys, simply parsing these fields and drawing the respective line would do the trick. Being able to do this the other way around, at least for our use case, would be lower-priority bonus features.

Cheers,
Tobi

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_]

Thanks for the detail, Tobi. We use customer feedback to prioritise work so thanks for helping us with that challenge.

In the meantime, you can keep an eye on this feature on our public roadmap for Easy Agile Roadmaps. I'll also reply to this thread with any updates to keep you in the loop and get feedback on any new developments.

Cheers,
Stephanie

[Rory Yandell]

Hi @Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_  

Add one more to the request for dependencies based on Jira links. I think this tool would great for my organization, but the visualization of Jira issue links is a hard requirement for us. 

[Henri Seymour _Easy Agile_]

Hi Rory, 

Thanks for your vote, I've added that!

Kind regards,

~ Stephanie Seymour, Easy Agile 

[Chris Rosser]

Dependency visualisation would be great for us too. Please prioritise this feature as much as you can for us. Thank you!

[Nick Muldoon]

Hi Chris, thanks for your vote!

For those whose dependencies span across teams, another of our apps features dependencies: Easy Agile Programs shows dependencies at a team-of-teams level. If you’re looking to plan work across multiple teams, I recommend trialing it to see if it suits you and your teams!

Kind regards,
Nick Muldoon, Easy Agile

[egil_sandfeld]

+1 on this implementation.

So what our team needs visual dependency links for is to understand the relationship between building a feature and its attached children, Epics, and parent, Business Goal.

Having a visual hook between these on the roadmap can help all stakeholders understand the why things are done, and why that order is in place.

We currently use the Jira Linking Issues feature, and specifically use the "Causes" and "Caused By" link types to create these dependencies. Therefore it's not in our interest to be able to block issues from others, and we can do with a simple "arrow" between dependent issues on the roadmap.

Btw. your roadmap link is down, which is kind of a let down for a company building tools for making roadmaps ;)

[caitlin.mackie]

Hi Egil,

Thanks for your feedback and taking the time to send through your feature request. Thanks for flagging the link, we're currently redesigning our website and have temporarily removed the page. 

We currently do not have any plans to deliver this functionality in the mid-term. We're currently focused on scaling our newer products to the same level of maturity and stability as Easy Agile Roadmaps.

I understand that this functionality would be valuable to you, and have made sure to add your vote to the story on our backlog so that we can follow up with you should anything change.

Given you mentioned dependencies, you might want to trial Easy Agile Programs. You can visualise dependencies, as well as set the dependency type as per your request helping to communicate the health/status.

Kind Regards,
Caitlin Mackie, Easy Agile.

[Jasmin Iordanidis]

Hi Claudio, 

My name's Jasmin and I'm in the team that work on Programs and Roadmaps. 

This is a really interesting use case, and one that we'd love to discuss more. Is it that you would like issues to be scheduled for less than a sprint length or that you would want to change the sprint dates? We are currently discussing our sprint editing capability internally.

Our latest release of Easy Agile Programs actually allows you to visualise dependencies between two Features, Features and Issues, and two Issues - which sounds like it would be helpful to your use case also. 

A quick filter for features/epics is something that would allow you to filter the Roadmap to just though higher level stories if you would wish. 

I would be interested to know more about what problems you are trying to solve with Easy Agile Roadmaps and/or Programs and how you'd use the tool in your context, or would like to use them together. If you'd like to discuss more, please set up a time via my Calendly.

I hope the above is helpful in the meantime. 

Best wishes,
Jasmin
Product Marketing Manager | Easy Agile Programs and Roadmaps 

[Jasmin Iordanidis]

Hi Claudio, 

My name's Jasmin and I'm in the team that work on Programs and Roadmaps. 

This is a really interesting use case, and one that we'd love to discuss more. Is it that you would like issues to be scheduled for less than a sprint length or that you would want to change the sprint dates? We are currently discussing our sprint editing capability internally.

Our latest release of Easy Agile Programs actually allows you to visualise dependencies between two Features, Features and Issues, and two Issues - which sounds like it would be helpful to your use case also. 

A quick filter for features/epics is something that would allow you to filter the Roadmap to just though higher level stories if you would wish. 

I would be interested to know more about what problems you are trying to solve with Easy Agile Roadmaps and/or Programs and how you'd use the tool in your context, or would like to use them together. If you'd like to discuss more, please feel free to set up a time in my Calendly. 

I hope the above is helpful in the meantime. 

Best wishes,
Jasmin
Product Marketing Manager | Easy Agile Programs and Roadmaps 

[Claudio Cipolloni]

Hello,

Any news on this "visual elastics" dependency feature for Easy Agile Roadmaps?
For our needs it is a must feature!

We did trials for Easy Agile Roadmaps and for Easy Agile Programs, and we would need something with Roadmaps features and with added "visual elastics" dependencies.
The reason why not to go for Programs is that Roadmaps allows freedom on Start/End dates for the tickets, while in Programs tickets are bound to Sprint dates.
This way we can use the Roadmaps visualization for requirement tickets that are higher level than Stories (i.e. Epics, Features).

Another good thing to have would be a configuration to reduce (to 50%-60%) the vertical occupation of tickets in the view. That to allow more issues to be displayed in the same space vertically.

Thanks,
Claudio.

[Jasmin Iordanidis]

Hi @Claudio Cipolloni

In addition to the above, I can share that the team is about to start work on the editing sprints capability in Easy Agile Programs, which may help ease some of the friction you described earlier.

I am more than happy to keep you posted as I feel the ability to visualise various dependencies in Easy Agile Programs combined with these improvements could be a good solution. 

You're welcome to keep up with latest updates through our Feature Log, or of course to evaluate the tool again (pending these updates if you wish). 

Best wishes,
Jasmin

[Roman_Benesch]

For our company, it is the same as for Claudio - we do Agile, but our teams ore only loosely coupled, i.e., we do not employ PIs or a similar cadence shared across teams - teams work on individual products, their releases being independently scheduled.

We however do have the occasional inter-team dependencies during software development; for us, Easy Agile Roadmaps with good dependency visualization would seem to be the perfect solution.