How to configure Big Picture boxes when teams work on multiple projects?

[Simon]

I am evaluating Big Picture (Enterprise) for our company to use for managing the delivery of our client projects. We have multiple agile development teams working in sprints. In a single sprint each team is often working on multiple projects in parallel. What is the best way to setup the box hierarchy in Big Picture 8 to manage this setup?

Reading the Big Picture documentation and watching some videos suggests creating iterations underneath agile/hybrid projects, however this doesn't work for us because our Jira sprints contains tickets from multiple projects.

Should we create a box per development team so that we can model the team iterations/sprints underneath? If we do that, how do we then produce project plans for our individual projects? 

[Anna-BigPicture · Accepted solution]

Hi @Simon

It is possible to create a box with a scope composed of several Jira projects. So the first option you have described, to create a two-level box structure where the first level box has an own scope (f.ex. Program Box type) and the second level with multiple boxes with a sub-scope (f.ex. Iteration Box type), should work just fine. If you decide to synchronize BP iteration Boxes with sprints in Jira, then you have to keep in mind that this option will work as long as Jira sprints have the same cadency and their start and end dates are aligned. If you decide to go for this option, please don’t forget about creating development teams in BP Teams Module. You will need it for proper synchronization purposes.
The second option you have described would work if you didn’t need an overview per project. But this is what you have noticed yourself.

If you are interested in a deeper discussion, please let me know. We can continue here or schedule a call.

[M_ egansteveon mariawolfe]

I can recommend an employee time tracking software that will generate reports and send them to the boss at the end of the day. Perhaps it will suit you.

[Simon]

We already use Tempo to track time, but time tracking is unrelated to my question.