How to get started with scrum in Jira Software (team-managed projects)

[#1]

Many new users of Jira Software sign up because they’ve heard it can help them be agile. Yet once they start using Jira Software, they struggle with how to adopt agile practices.

Maybe this sounds familiar. You may have heard about the agile methodology scrum and how it helps teams continuously ship value to customers (it can). And since you’ve found your way to the Atlassian Community, we trust you’ve also heard that Jira Software helps team practice scrum (it can). But how do you do it? Let’s take a look at how scrum comes to life in Jira Software.

(Head’s up, in the embedded video we are demoing a team-managed project. Functionality will differ slightly if you’re getting started in a company-managed project, but the high-level concepts remain the same. If you haven’t done so already, sign up for a free instance of Jira Software and choose a scrum template: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/templates/scrum)

In a nutshell, scrum is an agile framework for continuously shipping value to your customers via a series of fixed-length iterations called sprints. There are a few key steps to getting started:

1. Fill your backlog with all the pieces of work (called “issues”) your team needs to tackle. The backlog is your team’s foundation for iterative planning. It is home to all the work your team intends to spend time on (even work your customer/user may never see!). The backlog helps keep your team agile and increases transparency by letting everyone know what’s being worked on. It also helps with stakeholder management and setting expectations with other teams, especially when they bring new work to you.

2. Fill in each issue with details about work that needs to be completed. The backlog is comprised of issues. It may help to think of issues as tasks or work items. By clicking each issue in Jira Software, you can add relevant information. More information = increased transparency across the team about what needs to get done, by whom, and by when.

• When you first sign up, there will be a set of default issue fields. Head to Project Settings to customize which fields you want exposed (or hidden) in the Issue View.

• You can always click the issue name link to open the issue in a new tab for more real estate.

3. Start your sprint. A sprint is a short, time-boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work. Create a sprint, define its goals (this will help keep the team focused), and add all the issues from the backlog that your team intends to complete in the set amount of time (typically two weeks).

Once you’ve started your first sprint, you can start moving work through the workflow!

Remember, these are just the first few steps we recommend to get started with scrum. There are many more best practices that will help your team respond to changes and deliver value to customers in a more iterative way. To learn more about how to do scrum with the best of 'em, check out this guide.

We’d love to hear from you! What tips and suggestions do you have for new users just getting started with Scrum in Jira Software?

[Jack Brickey]

@Corinne Dent , great presentation and explanation. Definitely a useful article that I can refer other community members to in the future. Thanks for sharing!

[Bill Sheboy]

Thanks, @Corinne Dent 

For people new to scrum, they may also want to read The Scrum Guide, https://scrumguides.org/

It can answer several things for new teams (including talking points for helping stakeholders understand scrum) and may expose teams to things they will eventually need to figure out...like what do we mean by "done" for our value delivery.

Best regards,
Bill

[Benjamin]

Thank @Corinne Dent . This is great quick overview of team managed projects for scrum setup. Is there a similar one for the Kanban? 

[Corinne Dent]

Hi @Benjamin - glad you found this helpful! Yes, we have one for Kanban here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/New-to-Jira-articles/How-to-get-started-with-kanban-in-Jira-Software-team-managed/ba-p/1786001#U1786020

I'm curious to learn if there are any other short video topics you'd like to see created for help with setup?

[Grimes, Corbin]

From my understanding, Team Managed Projects (Vs company managed projects) are incompatible with JIRA Align (JA), which is a HUGE problem for enterprises looking to adopt JA. We are looking at having to convert over 60 Jira Projects to Company Managed...

[Subramaniyan Kavassery Viswanathan]

Thank You. This was very quick and crisp

Thanks,

Subbu

[ToluBolaji]

Many thanks for this brief piece. It has helped to start meoff on using Jira on my Scrum team.

By the way, I'm new here... :-)

[Siol Singhai Jain]

What is best- Team Managed or Company Managed?

[johnstonethan796]

Thanks, it is very helpful.

[Aamir Saleem]

Great roundup