Jira & Asana board design for agile methodology-II

What is a sprint?

A sprint is a time-boxed iteration in Agile methodology during which a development team works to deliver a potentially shippable product increment. Sprints are a fundamental aspect of Agile frameworks like Scrum, where they typically last between 1 to 4 weeks, with 2 weeks being the most common duration.

Key characteristics of a sprint include:

• Time-boxed: Sprints have fixed durations, meaning they start on a specific date and end on another predefined date, regardless of whether all planned work is completed.
• Focused Work: During a sprint, the development team commits to completing a set of user stories, tasks, or backlog items agreed upon during Sprint Planning. The team’s focus is on delivering a tangible increment of the product by the end of the sprint.
• Incremental Development: Sprints emphasize delivering value incrementally, with each sprint resulting in a potentially shippable product increment. This allows stakeholders to see tangible progress and provide feedback early in the development process.
• Sprint Planning: At the beginning of each sprint, the team holds a Sprint Planning meeting to select and commit to a set of backlog items to work on during the sprint. They define the Sprint Goal, which serves as the overarching objective for the sprint.
• Daily Scrum: Throughout the sprint, the team holds short, daily stand-up meetings called Daily Scrums or Daily Stand-ups. These meetings provide an opportunity for team members to synchronize their work, discuss progress, identify potential obstacles, and plan their activities for the day.
• Sprint Review: At the end of the sprint, the team conducts a Sprint Review meeting to demonstrate the completed work to stakeholders and gather feedback. This allows for validation of the increment and ensures alignment with customer needs.
• Sprint Retrospective: Also held at the end of the sprint, the Sprint Retrospective is a meeting where the team reflects on their processes, identifies what went well and what could be improved, and agrees on actionable items to implement in the next sprint.

By breaking work into manageable chunks and providing regular opportunities for inspection and adaptation, sprints enable Agile teams to deliver value quickly, respond to change effectively, and continuously improve their processes.

What is epic?

In Agile project management, an epic is a large body of work that can be broken down into smaller tasks or user stories. Epics are used to organize and manage work that is too large or complex to be completed within a single iteration or sprint. They represent high-level initiatives, features, or themes that align with the overall goals and objectives of the project.

Key characteristics of epics include:

• High-Level Scope: Epics define a significant amount of work that spans multiple iterations or sprints. They often encompass multiple user stories or tasks and may require collaboration across different teams or departments.
• Long-Term Planning: Epics are typically used for long-term planning and prioritization. They help stakeholders understand the overall scope of the project and provide a framework for prioritizing and sequencing work.
• Subject to Decomposition: While epics represent large bodies of work, they are not meant to be implemented as-is. Instead, they are decomposed into smaller, more manageable pieces, such as user stories, during backlog refinement or sprint planning sessions.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Epics often require collaboration among various stakeholders, including product owners, developers, designers, and other team members, to define requirements, estimate effort, and determine dependencies.
• Alignment with Business Goals: Epics are aligned with the overarching goals and objectives of the project or product. They help ensure that the work being performed contributes to the strategic direction of the organization and delivers value to the end users or customers.
• Tracking Progress: Epics are tracked throughout the project lifecycle to monitor progress, identify risks, and make adjustments as needed. Progress towards completing an epic is typically measured based on the completion of associated user stories or tasks.

Overall, epics serve as a valuable tool for Agile teams to manage large-scale initiatives, prioritize work, and ensure alignment with business objectives. By breaking down complex work into smaller, actionable components, teams can effectively deliver value incrementally and adapt to changing requirements and priorities.

Board workflow

The given workflow in the image shows how the task gets completed within the team right from design to production.

At the beginning of any new task or module, It is necessary to create a task in Epic for the project manager. Here Epic task in Jira means the main task or module we can say.

Each epic task must have a child task:
1. Design
2. Development
3. QA
4. Stage or Release

Key Points to remember while developing the task:

1. Anyone who has multiple tasks at one time needs to work according to the priority assigned to the task. Tasks with the highest priority need to be done first.
2. The transitions in the labels are needed to be changed by the person who is working on the task. If the task is in progress or is done the labels need to be changed as per the status of the work.

Meaning of terminologies in the workflow and when to change tasks to that terms in a project

• Backlog: when a task is created but the other task is in progress it is kept in the backlog. So whenever the task is made it is by default in the backlog until someone assigns it.
• To-Do: when a task is assigned to someone it is added to their to-do list.
• Ready for design: when we get a green flag from the client or PM about its design.
• Design in progress: When the design is in progress, the person who is working on it needs to change the transition from ready to design >> design in progress.
• Design completed: when the design is done and it is ready to send to the UI.
• Ready for UI: The task came to the UI person.
• UI in progress: when the task is in progress.
• UI completed: The Frontend part is completed.
• Ready for development: UI is done now it is time for its functionality to work.
• Development in progress: Under development.
• Development completed: The Developer has completed his task from his side and the code is being pushed.
• Ready for QA: Ready for testing.
• IN QA: It is under testing.
• Passed QA: No issue has occurred and all the functionalities are working fine.
• In live testing: It is in the live server to check whether it is working or not.
• PM approve: Final approval for the task to push it to production. Here the sample is being shown to the client.
• Ready for release: When PM approves the task it is ready to release in production.
• Done: when the task is done and it is live in production.
• Close: when the task is fully completed and delivered we close the task.
• Re-open: When in the already finished task if some changes come from the client side. We re-open the task and start working again.
• Failed dev test and merge: If the testing is failed by the developer side only or their task is not merged due to any issue then they will move back their task to READY FOR DEVELOPMENT and will start working again on the same.
• Failed QA: it there is any issue while QA it is sent to the following.
• A. Re-open UI: when there is a UI issue.
• B. Re-open development: when there is a functionality issue.
• Re-test: If there is any change from the PM side or any issue has occurred it is sent back to the READY FOR QA. and the team will check it on and will pass it to the respective team for the changes.

conclusion

In conclusion, both Jira and Asana offer robust board features tailored for Agile methodologies. Jira excels in its extensive customization options, particularly for larger, complex projects, with highly configurable workflows and integrations. Asana, on the other hand, provides a user-friendly interface and simpler setup, making it ideal for smaller teams or those new to Agile practices. Ultimately, the choice between Jira and Asana depends on the specific needs and preferences of the team, balancing customization, ease of use, and scalability.