Jira and Agile Project Management
Jira is a project management tool. It is used for issue tracking,bug tracking and project management pupose.
When a project include in Jira it can be divided into many parts. Each part is known as issue/ticket. A single issue can’t be in more than one project at a time. So, a project is a collection of issues.
Agile
Agile is time boxed, iterative approach, to project management and software development where teams tries to deliver the product to customer as soon as possible with little headaches. Agile turns to divided the work into many stories which is understandable to customer. Its a philosophical way to manage large task.
Agile Types
Agile can be categorize into two types. They are Kanban and scrum.
In Kanban approach teams work on bugs and issue which need to deliver on ASAP(as soon as possible) schedule. For example: Customer care where customer issue bugs. And teams prioritize those bugs and assign to a person for solving the bugs as soon as possible. Kanban agile method is used mainly for solving bugs of existing product.
Scrum another type of agile. Scrum work on new features or product with tight schedule. Scrum team break their work into time box/batch called sprints. Scrum doesn’t have any leader. Its teamwork base method.
Sprint duration 2–4 weeks. Number of sprint and sprint duration differs from project to project.
When new work discovered within a issue ,the issue left as it is and new work add to the next sprint.
How to create Kanban/Scrum project ?
Select “Create project” ->
Name the project. Name a key which is used as the prefix of issues keys created under the project.
Select template -> kanban/scrum -> select “Create” button.
Now your project is ready to play with. But remember it is empty at the beginning. My project Name is ‘K_demo’ and issue key prefix ‘KD’.
Just click on the red rectangle to add team mate using email/name/group.
Issue
Now create issue under our project. Initially there are no issue. To create issue click on create.
Issue types are : Story, Task ,Bugs and Epic. Among story,task,bugs are same apart from icon. But if we need to distinguish them then:
Story : It is defined by product manager . And it is understandable to Product owner and business user. It fitted into a sprint.
Task : Development team can further divide the story into preferable tasks. It is no longer understandable to user and owner. It is highly technical which focus the need of user and owner. It helps teams to do understand the problem and solve faster.
Bugs : It defines the new work discovered during solving a task.
Epic : Epic is like super story which can long few sprint. May be a user usable release.
Summary is the name of the story/epic/bugs/task.
Label and Components of a Issue
Issue can be label so that team can easily filter issues from collection of issue. like ‘red’ ‘yellow’ labeling for different team in a project.
Components is the technical categorization of issue. For example: Machine learning issue,web issue etc.
Backlog
When creating a issue it may not have any sprint specify. Then it stored in backlog.
I created two issue(story) which stored in backlog board. Then it can moved to any sprint by just holding it to a sprint.
Sprint and Active Sprint
After creating sprint we can’t specify duration until issue included. After including issue/issues we can define its duration.
In ‘Active Sprint’ we can see the issues to do. When working with a issue we move the issue to ‘IN PROGRESS’. And after completing the issue it should moved to done. We can add extra columns in the active sprint arena. For example : Verify. It used to verify the issue whether it is acceptable or not.
Assign
Issue generally assign to a team member. Before move a issue into ‘IN PROGRESS’ it should be assign to a team member. And the specify member start working on the issue.
Extra
Issue can be created by any team member and any member can assign himself or others.
Confluence
Jira provide another software confluence. Which is used to create document regarding the project’s issues.
Just click on space to create a space . For example : EduHubICT
Conclusion
So we could use Jira software to manage project using agile methodologies. Simple and essential operation of jira-agile are included in the blog. There are many more options to explore. Thank you.
