MUST-KNOW Jira features for Scrum Masters

Summary

This video script offers a comprehensive guide on utilizing Jira for agile project management. It covers the basics of setting up a Jira project, organizing product backlogs with Epics, and planning Sprints. The tutorial demonstrates how to create issues, assign tasks, and use Jira's board view for tracking progress. Additionally, it introduces advanced features like releases/versions for planning product goals and the roadmap for visual progress reviews, emphasizing the importance of clear communication and organization for successful agile practices.

Takeaways

• 😀 Scrum Masters and Product Owners should understand Jira's functionality for effective project management, even though they are not the primary Jira administrators.
• 📊 Product Owners need a holistic view of the product backlog for forecasting, planning releases, and organizing work to track progress and report on goal achievement.
• 🛠️ Jira offers various tools and functionalities to manage work and product backlogs, including creating projects, boards, epics, stories, bugs, tasks, and subtasks.
• 🔍 The speaker demonstrates creating a new Jira project with a simple workflow and how to organize it using epics, which represent larger tasks or goals.
• 📝 It's recommended to start thinking at the epic level and break down these epics into manageable items, such as user stories, tasks, and bugs.
• 🎯 The product backlog in Jira is a central place to create and organize items that will be worked on in upcoming sprints.
• 📉 The roadmap and release features in Jira help visualize the progress towards milestones and can be used for planning and reporting.
• 👥 Jira's UI has been optimized for ease of use, with features like flags for blocked items being more visually clear than a blocked column.
• 🔄 The ability to reorganize the product backlog by dragging and dropping items makes it simple to prioritize and plan for upcoming sprints.
• 📆 Jira allows for the creation of sprints with specific goals and timelines, helping teams to focus their work and measure progress against set objectives.
• 📝 The importance of detailed descriptions, acceptance criteria, and estimations for each item in the product backlog is emphasized for effective planning and execution.
• 🔑 Utilizing Jira's features like releases and versions can help in aligning work with product goals and providing a clear roadmap for the team and stakeholders.

Q & A

What is the necessity of understanding Jira for a Scrum Master?

A Scrum Master needs to understand Jira to effectively organize and keep track of the team's progress, know what needs to be done next, and provide a holistic view of the product backlog to the product owner for better planning and reporting.

How can a product owner use Jira to forecast and plan releases?

A product owner can use Jira to create forecasts, plan releases, and organize work overall for a better view of progress. This helps in achieving the team's goals and reporting on their status.

What are the different types of Jira software mentioned in the script?

The script mentions Jira Work Management and Jira Software as the different types of Jira software, with a note that there might be a difference between the two, although the exact difference is not specified.

How does one create a new project in Jira?

To create a new project in Jira, you select the option to create a new project and choose the project type, such as Kanban, Scrum, or Backlog, depending on the team's working methodology.

What is the purpose of creating Epics in Jira?

Epics in Jira are used to organize larger tasks or groups of work that the team wants to accomplish. They help in thinking at a higher level and provide a structured way to break down these larger tasks into stories, bugs, tasks, or subtasks.

How can one add items to an Epic in Jira?

Items can be added to an Epic in Jira by opening the Epic and adding descriptions, acceptance criteria, and child issues that represent the specific tasks or deliverables needed to fulfill the Epic.

What is the difference between a Sprint and a Release in Jira?

A Sprint in Jira is a time-boxed period during which specific work has to be completed, whereas a Release is a higher-level product goal that can be linked to a specific date or set of functionality to be delivered.

How can the flag feature in Jira be used instead of a blocked column?

The flag feature in Jira can be used to highlight items that are blocked or need attention by adding a visual flag to them. This is considered more visual and easier to manage than using a blocked column, which can create confusion about the timing of blockages.

What is the recommended way to organize the product backlog in Jira?

The recommended way to organize the product backlog in Jira is by using Epics to group related items and then using the Kanban board to track progress towards the Sprint goal. Releases or versions can also be used to organize items based on higher-level product goals or milestones.

How can Jira's roadmap feature be utilized in product planning?

Jira's roadmap feature can be used to visualize the progress towards different Sprints and Releases, providing a clear overview of the team's progress and helping in discussions around overall progress towards Milestones.

What is the importance of assigning issues to specific team members in Jira?

Assigning issues to specific team members in Jira helps in tracking individual responsibilities and progress. It also allows team members to filter the board to see only the issues assigned to them, improving visibility and focus on their tasks.

Outlines

00:00

🔧 Introduction to Jira for Scrum Masters

The speaker introduces the necessity for Scrum Masters to understand Jira, even though they are not the primary owners. They emphasize the importance of keeping Jira up to date and using it to track progress and organize tasks. The speaker then walks through the process of navigating Jira, creating a new project, and choosing between different project types like Kanban, Scrum, or Backlog. They decide to create a Scrum project and explain the basic workflow statuses. The project created is called 'Agile Transformation,' and the speaker discusses the initial setup, including naming conventions and the use of Epics for organizing larger tasks.

05:03

📋 Organizing Epics and Product Backlog in Jira

The speaker demonstrates how to create Epics in Jira, which are higher-level tasks that encompass multiple issues. They provide examples of Epics such as 'Product Definition and Alignment' and 'Resolve Major Technical Debt,' and show how to add these to the product backlog. The speaker also explains how to add descriptions, acceptance criteria, and child issues to Epics. They discuss the importance of visual organization using colors to differentiate Epics and improve the overall view of the product backlog.

10:06

🛠️ Managing Team Morale and Technical Debt in Jira

The speaker addresses the issue of team morale and technical debt by creating specific Epics for these areas. They add findings and deliverables to the 'Team Morale and Team Spirit' Epic and discuss strategies for improving team motivation. For managing technical debt, they outline potential tasks and demonstrate how to add these as child issues under the respective Epic. The speaker also shows how to reorganize the product backlog by dragging and dropping issues, and how to use flags to highlight blocked or important items.

15:08

📅 Starting and Planning Sprints in Jira

The speaker explains how to start a Sprint in Jira, including setting the dates and defining the Sprint goal. They discuss the importance of having a clear goal and how to handle tasks that are not yet ready to be included in the Sprint. The speaker also covers how to create tasks related to setting up a team wiki space and how to assign issues to team members. They highlight the use of filters to view tasks assigned to specific individuals and the importance of visual tracking on the Kanban board.

20:10

🚩 Using Flags and Completing Sprints in Jira

The speaker prefers using flags over a blocked column to indicate issues that are blocked or require attention. They explain how to flag items and how these flags are visually represented in Jira. The speaker also discusses the process of completing a Sprint, including deciding what to do with open issues and reflecting on the Sprint's success. They mention the importance of planning for future releases and using the roadmap feature to visualize progress.

25:15

📈 Utilizing Releases and Roadmap for Planning in Jira

The speaker introduces the concept of releases or versions in Jira as a way to organize work towards higher-level product goals. They explain how to create releases, link them to specific functionality or dates, and use them to track progress. The speaker also discusses the benefits of using the roadmap feature to have a visual overview of Sprints and releases, and how this can aid in planning and stakeholder communication. They conclude by emphasizing the ease of use and the importance of starting with a well-organized product backlog and Sprint planning.

🎬 Wrapping Up and Inviting Feedback on Jira Features

In the concluding paragraph, the speaker summarizes the key functionalities of Jira that were covered in the video, focusing on organizing the product and Sprint backlogs. They invite viewers to subscribe and comment with feedback or requests for additional features and tools to be explored in future videos. The speaker encourages the use of Jira's visual tools for better planning, forecasting, and stakeholder communication.

Keywords

💡Jira

Jira is a project management tool developed by Atlassian, widely used for bug tracking, issue tracking, and project management. In the context of the video, Jira is the central platform for organizing work, tracking progress, and managing the product backlog, which is essential for both the Scrum Master and the Product Owner to oversee the team's workflow and sprint planning.

💡Scrum Master

A Scrum Master is a role in the Scrum framework who facilitates and ensures that the team follows Scrum practices and principles. In the video, the Scrum Master is not the owner of Jira but is responsible for keeping the tool up to date and organizing the workflow to reflect the team's progress accurately.

💡Product Owner

The Product Owner is another key role in Scrum who manages the product backlog, making sure it reflects the current priorities and goals. The video emphasizes the Product Owner's need for a holistic view of the product backlog to forecast, plan releases, and report on the team's progress towards achieving their goals.

💡Product Backlog

A product backlog is a prioritized list of features, requirements, and bugs that a team needs to work on. The video script discusses the importance of the Product Owner having a clear view of the product backlog and using it to organize work and forecast future work, which is crucial for planning sprints and releases.

💡Epic

In Jira, an Epic is a large body of work that contains multiple issues and is used to represent a significant piece of functionality or a large feature. The video describes creating Epics such as 'product definition' and 'resolve major technical debt' to organize the team's work at a higher level and to facilitate better planning and tracking.

💡Sprint

A Sprint is a time-boxed period during which a Scrum team works to complete a set of tasks and deliver a potentially shippable product increment. The video explains how to create Sprints in Jira, start them, and plan which items from the product backlog will be included in each Sprint.

💡Kanban Board

A Kanban Board in Jira is a visual representation of the workflow that helps teams to track the progress of tasks and issues. In the script, the Kanban Board is used to manage the 'to do', 'in progress', and 'done' statuses of tasks within a Sprint, providing a clear visual overview of the team's workflow.

💡Roadmap

The Roadmap in Jira is a feature that provides a high-level view of the project's progress, including Sprints and Releases. The video script mentions using the Roadmap to visualize the status of different issues and to plan for future releases, which helps in aligning the team's goals with the stakeholders' expectations.

💡Releases/Versions

In Jira, Releases or Versions are used to group issues that are meant to be delivered together, often associated with a specific set of features or a product goal. The video script explains how to use Releases to organize the product backlog and to plan for delivering specific functionality by a certain date.

💡Flag

The Flag feature in Jira is used to mark issues that require special attention. The video suggests using the Flag feature as an alternative to a 'blocked' column on the Kanban Board, as it provides a visual indicator of issues that are blocked or need immediate attention without causing confusion about the timing of the blockage.

💡Backlog Refinement

Backlog refinement, also known as backlog grooming, is the process of reviewing and re-prioritizing the items in the product backlog. The video script refers to this process when discussing how to decide which issues to include in the next Sprint and how to keep the product backlog organized and up to date.

Highlights

Understanding Jira's necessity for Scrum Masters to manage and organize team progress.

Product Owners need a holistic view of the product backlog for forecasting and planning releases.

Jira can be used to show progress and organize work for better goal achievement.

Creating a new project in Jira involves choosing between Kanban, Scrum, or Backlog.

Jira Software types like Jira Work Management differ in functionality.

Creating Epics is a recommended approach for organizing larger tasks in Jira.

Epics can be created from the backlog view or the roadmap view in Jira.

Adding descriptions and acceptance criteria to Epics helps in detailing the tasks.

Child issues can be added under Epics to specify tasks and user stories.

Reorganizing the product backlog in Jira can be done by dragging and dropping items.

Using the flag feature in Jira is recommended over a blocked column for visual clarity.

Starting a Sprint in Jira requires setting dates and defining a Sprint goal.

Adding items to a Sprint in Jira helps in planning and tracking progress.

Jira's roadmap view provides a visual overview of the product backlog and Sprints.

Using releases or versions in Jira can help in organizing work towards higher-level product goals.

Planning releases in Jira should be done from scratch to avoid confusion in item allocation.

Jira's UI has been optimized for easier use and understanding of product management tools.

Utilizing Jira's features can help teams plan, forecast, and organize work effectively.

Transcripts

with a team at some point that uses jira and  then I already showed you how you could use  

there is this necessity to know how it works  even if obviously scrum Master is not a jira  

owner more specifically to organize everything  you have there and keep it up to date keep it  

know or what where they're at with progress and  what they need to do next for the product owner  

the product owner needs to have a holistic view  of the product backlog of the items that are to  

be created or worked on but also be able to use  it to forecast so creating some forecasts maybe  

planning some releases and just organize their  work overall to have a better view of progress  

and be able to report on where the team is at  with achieving their goals and then of course  

jira to show them what's going on in your product  backlog let's jump into jira and look at some of  

the most common tools and functionalities that you  need to be familiar with if your team uses jira to  

manage their work and their product backlog here  here I am at the main page and yours might look  

a little bit different but so far I think this  is the latest view of jira as you can see I have  

multiple projects here or multiple tabs basically  related to different products or different teams  

we will be creating a new one there are different  types of jira software there is jira Work  

Management I am using your software I think there  is a difference between those two not sure what we  

have Confluence and I talked about Confluence in  my previous video so I'm gonna link this down in  

the description so that you can go and check this  out we were creating team Wiki Pages we have all  

of these projects as you can see there are lots of  items that I was kind of testing not as important  

right now but what we want to do is to create a  new project so we're creating a new project and  

we can choose what we want to do whether we want  to create a kanban basically just a workboard  

scrum or backtracking I've never used this one  I think because you can use kanban for that  

too so we will create a scrum project because  as a scrum Master most likely you are working  

with the team that is running Sprints it gives  you ability to create Sprints and then you can  

create epics stories bugs tasks or subtasks and  the workflow is extremely simplistic just has  

three statuses to do in progress done we'll use  team managed for now and we will give it a name  

so let's make our project realistic I am going  to use plan and Improvement plan that I have  

been working on to help the team improve this is  not very specific to a team so I will be gathering  

information from the different situations and  other different projects I worked in let's put  

it agile transformation usually it will just  take the first letters of the name but you  

can also just change it and I'm going to call it  agile because why not you can create the project  

and here we go so this is the agile board and it  drops us right away into the board view which is  

the Sprint view but we're not going to be looking  into that just yet we'll go into our backlog just  

to kind of see a general idea of what it is we  have our backlog here at the bottom it's empty  

obviously and then we have our Sprint number  one that hasn't been started yet as you can  

see we cannot start it because it has no issues  and this is one way and one place where you can  

start creating items for your product backlog  right so you can click right here and start  

creating a story a task or a bug but one thing  that I generally recommend is to start thinking  

on the Epic Level so thinking about bigger tasks  that you want your team to work on and the way to  

organize it is by using epics so you can see  here it says epic if I click obviously there  

are no epics I haven't created anything but I can  show the Epic panel right here very new nothing is  

there and we can start creating Epic from this  view we can also start creating epics from the  

roadmap view so if we create on the roadmap  we're able to actually create epics and this  

little sign here we can also create an epic or an  issue by clicking on the create button at the top  

and we just need to make sure that we're choosing  the right project here and then we can choose any  

issue type which might be epic so there are  multiple ways of how you would go about it so  

let me create a couple of epics something that  would make a bit of sense so let's say that in  

our agile assessment we have identified that the  product definition is not as well done so we're  

going to say that our first epic is going to be  a product definition and Alignment by the way if  

you want to know how to collect all of the data  from your your agile analysis or assessment into  

one beautiful presentation that you can show to  your stakeholders I do have a template that you  

can use it's a PowerPoint template I'm going to  link it in the description in case you'd like  

to grab one and use it yourself now let's look  into other things that we can add say product  

definition and Alignment this is pretty good  maybe something around technical debt that is  

a popular problem let's call it resolve major  technical debt if this will be our epic number  

two and maybe let's create a third one maybe  something around team building or team morale  

okay and the third one will be in Christy morale  and team spirit so these are our three epics that  

we have created obviously they don't have anything  under them they're just epics so if we go into the  

product backlog well if we close the panel we  don't have anything in the backlog because the  

only items that will be appearing in the backlog  are the items that are small enough basically the  

items that we will be taking into this Sprint  so let's open up our panel once again and here  

we can see here are the three epics that I have  created no dates no issues obviously we can view  

the details for the Epic in this panel here  and we can start adding description so maybe  

product definition let's look into some of the  items that we can add so we open up the Epic on  

on the right side you can see this panel we can  start adding description and acceptance criteria  

and obviously start adding the items that will  be need to be done as part of this epic if you  

have already watched my zenhub tutorial you'll  see that a lot of it is very similar to what I  

have done there but let's put some items here for  example some of the findings that I had so let's  

maybe add some deliverables for now this will be  our deliverables and obviously these items will  

be able to help us create the user stories the  tasks and everything else as part of this epic  

so I'm going to save and what I'm going to do is  actually open it up jira likes to use a lot of  

the breadcrumbs basically all of this item like  links that show you the hierarchy of things and  

sometimes it's a bit confusing but you can kind  of get into every item every ticket by clicking  

the link so I'm going to open up the item for  this epic agile transformation this is the Epic  

we have just created and obviously we can have the  conversations here comments Etc but let's actually  

add a child issues right here to be more specific  about what we need to do I have created just a few  

things here kind of to be more specific so we  will conduct a product definition workshop with  

stakeholders create documentation in our wikis  then we have also Workshop talking about goals  

more specifically create a best of the product  backlog items for the next big product goal  

let's put it that way and then maybe also  Identify some of the kpis and now you have your  

epic and all of the items that are underneath  the Epic so now when we go back to the product  

backlog what do we see well we have all of these  items here in our product backlog now appearing  

you can also immediately see what epic they are  related to one of the things that can be very  

helpful if you have multiple epics you don't want  all of them to to have the same color obviously  

you can read what's written there but what you can  do if you actually go into the Epic when you click  

on the Square here so this Violet square right  next to the name you can change color and I find  

it very useful because that kind of gives you a  visual view of everything you have on your product  

backlog without the need to necessarily read into  each detail so let's refine and as you can see now  

all of them are now blue maybe let's look into the  team morale I'll view all details and we'll maybe  

make it no so let's think about the team morale  that's a good epic to discuss so what is the team  

morale maybe we'll have started findings let's  I think what's going on the team is demotivated  

okay so I added some findings just to to  have something in our list so we have team  

is demotivated doesn't want to participate in  meetings there have been no changes implemented  

and we have some people who left unexpectedly  so let's think about deliverables okay so I have  

created a few things here just uh as an example  obviously and let's add some child issues to  

represent what are some of the tasks that we  might want to do here let me change actually  

the type we'll put a task instead of a user story  just to have something different on our board so  

let's give these five obviously that's it these  are the items we'll have and now we can go back  

to our product backlog and look at that now our  product backlog looks more and more live lots of  

things happening now let's go into resolve major  technical debt so I added a few things here into  

the findings as well as deliverables just to  give us some ideas so let's start creating some  

of those tickets this is just a few things that  we can do and going back to our product backlog  

amazing our product backlog is looking nice now  let's close this panel here just to have a bit  

more overview and view of what's going on and  now obviously all of it is kind of aligned with  

the epics they all go one after the other what we  can do is start to reorganize it or for example  

we can do the product definition workshop and  then we can do definition of that Workshop that  

would be good to kind of happen around the same  time we won't be waiting for the whole product  

definition to be ended before we would want  to work on the definition of them and maybe  

let's run a team agreements Workshop that's  an important one that we definitely want to  

have here so we have a few things right here we  can reorganize and some other things in here so  

this is how you would reorganize your photo  backlog you can just drag and drop it very  

easy you can also if you click on this item and  then you so I have selected this obviously it's  

going to open on the right so I selected it  now I'm holding shift and it means that I can  

choose like several items at a time and it means  if I'm moving them I'm gonna move all of them at  

once as well as you can also click on say control  if you want to select items from different parts  

that that way you're not selecting a whole group  so this is control but let's say if you want to  

select the whole thing you click on the first  item hold shift like on the last item now you  

have selected everything and it means that you  can make some changes all together to this items  

such as move them into the specific Sprint or  maybe move them to different parts of the product  

backlog there are some things that you can do  apart from moving them around say you have 200  

items in your product backlog which you shouldn't  that might be a bit too many and you don't want to  

scroll down all the way to the bottom or all the  way to the top because when you create new issues  

they will appear at the bottom of the product  backlog so you can actually hover over your issue  

let's put maybe this one at the very bottom and  you can put it at the top of the backlog or at  

the bottom of the backlog so for example let's  create say that we have created this new issue  

it's at the bottom but we want to put it to the  top that's it it appears at the top automatically  

it will it will be at the bottom but then in the  same way you can move it to the bottom and now  

you can also do that in the same way by moving it  to specific Sprints let's put in these four items  

into our first Sprint so this is our first Sprint  and we let's say we are starting our Sprint starts  

today and it's going to run for two weeks very  common Sprint lengths of course you would want to  

have more description and potentially estimations  if you are using estimations I'm not going to be  

using it right now and it means that we are ready  to start our spread so we can click on the start  

sprint button it is going to ask us a few things  it is going to ask us for the dates as well as  

the Sprint goal this is not mandatory but it is  actually mandatory in scrum you can also you know  

how to start the Sprint to change those things  you can actually edit it and just click on this  

edit button and you can say let's say okay two  weeks it's gonna automatically calculate it and  

then we might want to want to create a Sprinkle  which would be so I created this goal it's pretty  

vague but just to get us started create a baseline  documentation for a product and team in the team  

wiki space so we can kind of start update it now  it is ready and let's say this is the goal that  

I'm bringing into the Sprint planning as a product  owner and now we're thinking well wait a minute we  

actually don't have any wiki space whatsoever so  we have some other things that we need to discuss  

before would be able to actually accomplish this  goal and that would be Define what tools we're  

going to use and create our first team page okay  so I have created these two Define what Wiki tools  

will use as a team and create the team overview  page and obviously these items have not been added  

to any specific epic yet so you don't have any  epic attached to them how do you change that well  

you can obviously click here on ADD epic or if  you're you are inside of the item for example this  

one on the you can click on the three dots right  there at the very top there are two different  

three dots so this is the one you need to click  add the actions and you can add parent which will  

bring out the menu where you can choose the Epic  not everything will have to be part of an epic  

but what you can also do is actually once again  open up the Epic panel and you can actually move  

things let's say we are going to add this one  to the same one and I just dragged and dropped  

it on the Epic and now it is part of the Epic so  it's pretty easy to use and pretty straightforward  

right let's actually start our spread and here's  our first spread it started so this is our kanban  

board this is where we can actually track progress  evidently right now everything sets in to do  

because we haven't started any work yet we also  have pretty simple structure here that we have to  

do in progress done maybe we want to add a couple  of more let's add another one maybe in review  

so have to do in progress in review I'm done  and obviously every item can start moving along  

so let's start with something simple create a  team or your page and say we can actually say  

well I have already created it so it's in review  I send it to the team for you and now we can maybe  

start with the assessment when we have these  items obviously we can actually assign them to  

someone and I'm gonna look into just a couple of  things there to show you the important items and  

as we are in this item so I opened up just clicked  here as you can see it is not assigned to anyone  

means that we can assign it obviously I only have  myself here so I'm going to assign it to myself  

and here we can see who it is assigned to and  it means that at the top we can easily filter  

say I just want to filter by the this person me  so I click on my little icon and I can see it  

and then we can add people obviously or we can  clear filters click in here or by clicking the  

same button so you can see the way your board  looks so whenever you come back you can see an  

overall overview of what's going on and here at  the top you can see how many days are remaining  

now a lot of people a lot of people have the  blocked column here and they would have it here  

sometimes here the thing is that it can get  blocked at many different points I really don't  

like using that I prefer to not have the blocked  column for one very specific reason because jira  

has a very good feature that is called add a  flag and now this item is highlighted so it's  

red right it has a little flag and it is red here  very Visual and it also appears flagged in here  

and that tells me well this item is flagged and  it's very easy to see it in the list right here  

and I find it much more Visual and easy to use  than having a blocked column the problem with  

the blocked column is that you would move items  into the blocked column but then you would need  

to move them back and that kind of creates a lot  of confusion at which point was it blocked was it  

while it was in review or in progress or maybe  before we even started working on it so having  

a flag feature definitely is a great way to use  it so I definitely recommend using flag feature  

rather than itself and here obviously you have  your Sprint and once the Sprint comes to an end  

you can complete it well I still have nine days  to go so I'm not gonna complete the Sprint but  

if we are completing this print it is going to  ask you this item and I do recommend you actually  

reading through it making sure that you agree  with what is written here zero completed issues  

six open issues where do you want to move them  well do I want to move in them back into the  

product backlog or do I want to move them to  a new Sprint that this system will create for  

us because we don't have another one we can  also go into back into the backlog and we can  

create our second Sprint in advance maybe start  pre-flatting during the backlog refinement you're  

already starting to decide what kind of issues  we would like to add into the next Sprint just  

a few points that can be helpful if you are  clicking on say an item here and you want to  

actually get to the Epic if you click here  it only just asks you what other epic you  

want to change it to but it does natural  green to the Epic and if you click on this  

here is the issue and as I said breadcrumbs you  can put you can click on this issue right here  

that it shows you the parent of the the conductor  product definition workshop and this is how you  

can get back to the Epic so if I click on the  Epic here I can see here's the Epic and all  

the items underneath it another cool feature  is obviously we started this with the roadmap  

and now we have the roadmap right here we can open  up and see what is the status of different issues  

so we started working on a couple of items right  here we can see in progress and it obviously shows  

us the um the progress bar right here or when  it is collapsed it is pretty visual this is one  

way of how you can organize your product backlog  there is also another feature that I really like  

using in jira it is the releases slash versions  as you can see I don't have it here so we need  

to actually add them in the product set project  settings so I'll go in here we have the Sprints  

we can add reports and let's add releases we don't  need to have the code so I'm going to actually  

to turn it off and now we have releases there is  another way of how you can organize it and I would  

say that release can be used as a product goal  so kind of a bigger higher level product goal and  

it can be linked to a specific date or to maybe a  specific set of functionality that you would like  

to deliver or maybe a roadmap feature roadmap  Milestone so we can say something here maybe  

we can create a first few milestones and maybe  we want to have kind of some improvements seen  

all of the key items at least started for now I  will add call it release 1.2 so we can put in the  

description should be maybe a bit more detailed  and we're going to say well we started today and  

maybe we want to finish right before Christmas so  I'm going to save and now we can see this release  

and if I click on it nothing is there here's where  we can go back to our backlog and start thinking  

about what items would go into which releases and  as you can see now we have the version tab in here  

right and we can open up the versions panel in  the same way we have different versions same  

as we had epics we can in the same way now add all  of it right here let's say that everything we have  

right now on our product backlog is part of the  release very easy as you see I have just selected  

everything and moved it into release one you would  want to start with releases if you decided to use  

them because retroactively changing watch released  like what item is belongs to which release  

is ear pain I do not recommend it and maybe if  you are want to use releases start from kind of  

from scratch planning for the next release and if  you have a very good product goal you can use it  

as your release Milestone release objective and  then plan for it more specifically so in this  

case we have our version or release both of them  are the same if we click on the item it is going  

to be called fixed version why it is called that  way I don't know but they are different ways of  

how it is called releases versions really are is  talking about the same thing so now when we go  

back to the releases we can see the progress based  on the progress that is made on the items that are  

part of this release so if I click here well I  can see all of the items I can see the status  

of all the different items how many issues are  in progress how many issues are done or in to do  

it is very very helpful to see it that way and  I find it very helpful to work to get organized  

from the get-go and know exactly what you want to  to do for every goal for every Milestone and here  

it also gives you how many days are left so you  can really plan ahead and see maybe we have only  

a few days left and most of it is in to do so  we might need to get back to the drawing board  

and plan again do we need to adjust the timeline  do we need to adjust the features that we will be  

able to deliver well we need to have a discussion  around that and these reports can be very helpful  

you can obviously add the release notes here  and you can use the information from jira photos  

release notes obviously it will depend on how well  you are creating your product backlog issues but  

you can also out create your own release notes  and then once you click release when the release  

is done will show as a green one in the list right  now it's blue because it is still unreleased and  

in the same way you can create multiple releases  and start planning ahead when we go back to the  

roadmap we also start seeing a release so this can  be very helpful as you can see we have a Sprint  

line that shows us very different Sprints that we  already have and then we have releases showing us  

the date also very helpful because we can have a  visual or review of what is going on where we are  

at are we progressing this will be all of the  things how that you can use to help your team  

plan and use the tools that are at your disposal  make it easy it is not as hard as it seems really  

you're using your product backlog to create items  to plan ahead and then you use the board here the  

kanban board to help you understand where your  are at in regards to your Sprint goal these are  

all of the key functionality that I wanted to  show you in this video so really focusing more  

on organizing the product backlog and organizing  the Sprint backlog and how you can use jira it is  

pretty straightforward I don't think that it has  such a big learning curve as it have been before  

I think they really optimize their UI right now  it looks a bit cleaner it is still a little a  

little bit confusing I'd say but you can as  you can see there are some certain features  

that are pretty easy to use and can be a great  help for your product owner when forecasting  

when planning ahead and organizing the product  backlog as well as to your team to give them  

more visibility into the goals that are set by  the product organization by the stakeholders the  

product owner whoever makes those decisions and  it can be very easily shown in a visual way and  

used to actually present then this information  back to your stakeholders maybe pulling up the  

roadmap in your Sprint review can be a great  way to actually have the conversation around  

the overall progress towards your Milestones I  hope you learned something new and if you did  

like subscribe and comment down below what other  features or functionality you'd like me to look  

at in general Confluence or maybe what other  tools you'd like me to investigate and show you  

how to use in your work and I'll see you in the  next video cheers and scrum on foreign [Music]