Seeking Assistance with Setting Up Jira for a Hybrid Kanban-Scrum Workflow

[Christian Lysdahl]

I'm sure that similar questions have been asked before, but the answers I've found either describe something I've already tried or are not quite what I'm looking for.

Background:
We are currently just one agile team within the organization, but it has been decided that we should adopt SAFe, primarily because of the long-term planning provided by Program Increments (PIs), I believe. Our Product Owner doesn't have much time to manage the backlogs, so we need a good way to organize and group the issues. Initially, we used Trello, but when I assumed the role of Scrum Master, I wanted a tool that better supported iterations than Trello.

We began with a team-managed project using the Scrum template, but we have discovered that some of the functionality we desire is only available in company-managed projects. I have never used Jira before, and I have been struggling for quite some time now to set up a new company-managed project with boards and workflows that accurately reflect the lifecycle of our issues, so any help regarding what I should do and in which order would be greatly appreciated.

I will attempt to describe the process that we need Jira to support.

Process:
The process can be divided into three phases. The first phase is the design phase, where issues originate as ideas and undergo maturation. Issues can remain in this phase for an extended period, and it is best supported by the Kanban project type. The Scrum project type, with its sprints, is not required here. At the end of this phase, ready issues are kept in a product (ART) backlog until they are selected for development.

The next phase is the development phase. During this phase, we utilize sprints, and only matured issues that are chosen for development should appear in the team backlog. Here, the issues can be ranked, estimated, and planned into sprints, making the Scrum project type ideal for this phase. If capacity is insufficient or priorities change, issues can be returned to the product backlog. The story points accumulated during development should contribute to the completion of the sprint. Once the sprint is finished, the completed issues should move on to the final phase.

The final phase is external validation. In many ways, this phase is similar to the first phase as it does not require sprints, and issues can remain here for an extended period until they are released.

I've tried to model the entire workflow like this:

This almost worked, except that the "Backlog" would either be empty, contain the newly created issues from "Idé" (Idea) and/or require "Backlog" to be a column in the active sprint boards - although that column would be empty.

In time some issues types should only appear in some places which could be handled by different filters on different boards.

[John Funk]

Hi Christian,

There can be lots of answers to this, but I will throw my two cents in. 

First, you might want to check out the new Atlassian product called Jira Product Discovery (JPD). This just went to GA and is an excellent tool for the ideation phase of proposed ideas. 

And having said that, I would tend to keep it in a separate project from the next phase. You can handle that a couple of different ways, you can start all of your ideas out as Initiatives or Feature Requests, vet them, and then make a decision to work them or not. At that point you can do a Move function to the Development project. Or you can close them out and have an automation rule create the new issue in the Development project. 

That process would work great with the JPD product. 

Once in the Development project, flesh everything out as you would following your SAFe process - using initiatives, Feature Requests/Epics, Stories, etc. I would use the Backlog and the Iteration Backlog (we just call it To Do)  as you have it setup. Make that last status the first column on your board.

When you create your Sprints, move your Stories (and Tasks, etc.) from the Backlog to the To Do status. Then work your normal Sprint process.

Another note is that we separate out support requests as a separate project that follows the Kanban methodology and uses a different board. You can do the same with Bugs/Defects depending on how you work those. 

I hope that helps a little. 

[Christian Lysdahl]

Hi John,

Thank you for taking the time to provide your insights. I appreciate your suggestion to check out Jira Product Discovery (JPD); I will definitely explore it further.

Regarding the multi-project solution, I had concerns about potential confusion for the team. In accordance with the SAFe requirements model, we mainly work indirectly on features by working on the stories they are comprised of. Based on this, my initial plan was to organize the Kanban project to encompass everything above the story level, while reserving the Scrum project for handling stories and spikes exclusively. However, your perspective has given me reason to reconsider, and I'll reevaluate the multi-project approach.

I'm keen on gathering different perspectives and ideas on this matter, so I'll keep the question open while I experiment with the multi-project solution and also explore the suitability of JPD for our needs.

Once again, thank you for your input.

Best regards,
Christian

[John Funk]

Happy to help. Let us know how it turns out for you!