In this help article, we shall outline the essential and nice to follow best practices in Atlassian Jira to extract the best out of the Cubyts platform. Please note that you can embrace these best practices over time, as you embrace the Cubyts platform.
Essential best practices:
All issues should have a due date
What:
Every issue in Jira should have a due date to ensure timely completion and clear deadlines.
Why:
Setting a due date encourages timely work, helps prioritize tasks, and aligns team efforts with project timelines. It also helps in tracking overdue tasks and managing workloads effectively.
How it helps engineering managers:
Enables better workload planning.
Helps identify potential delays early.
Aligns tasks with project timelines.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Facilitates sprint planning and backlog grooming.
Aid in maintaining the pace of the project.
Ensures visibility into task deadlines.
Link Jira and JSM/Freshdesk feedback tickets
What:
Maintain a link between Jira issues and feedback tickets from Jira Service Management (JSM) or Freshdesk using the linked issues feature or web links.
Why:
Linking feedback tickets with Jira issues ensures that customer feedback is tracked through the development process. This connection fosters transparency and ensures that no customer request is lost.
How it helps engineering managers:
Ensures alignment between customer feedback and development.
Provides a clear trail of customer requests and their implementation.
Improves accountability in addressing customer issues.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Helps prioritize tasks based on customer impact.
Enhances communication between customer support and development teams.
Facilitates better reporting on customer-driven tasks.
Maintain definite linking between different types of issues for a feature
What:
Ensure issues related to a feature, such as definition, design, development, analytics, and QA, are linked via Jira's linked issues feature.
Why:
Linking related issues ensures that all aspects of a feature are tracked together. This practice provides a comprehensive view of the feature's progress and dependencies.
How it helps engineering managers:
Improves visibility into the entire lifecycle of a feature.
Facilitates better risk management by identifying dependencies.
Helps in coordinating work across different teams.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Ensures all necessary tasks for a feature are identified and tracked.
Enhances the clarity of the feature’s development process.
Aids in effective sprint planning and backlog management.
Track effort in Jira using effort estimation, time tracking, and worklog fields
What:
Use Jira's effort estimation, time tracking, and worklog fields to monitor the time spent and effort expended on tasks.
Why:
Tracking effort in Jira helps ensure that the team is on track to meet deadlines and provides valuable data for future project estimations. It also aids in identifying potential bottlenecks.
How it helps engineering managers:
Provides accurate data for resource planning.
Helps identify tasks that are taking longer than expected.
Improves future project estimations and planning.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Enables more precise sprint planning.
Helps in monitoring progress and adjusting workloads.
Facilitates better retrospectives with data-driven insights.
Include Figma links in design stories
What:
Attach Figma links to design stories in Jira as web links, allowing easy access to design outputs directly from the story.
Why:
Linking Figma designs directly to Jira stories ensures that the design work is easily accessible and aligned with development tasks. This practice improves collaboration between designers and developers.
How it helps engineering managers:
Ensures that design and development are synchronized.
Provides quick access to design materials for review.
Enhances the quality of design implementation.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Simplifies tracking of design progress.
Ensures that designs are readily available for reference.
Facilitates smoother handoffs between design and development teams.
Integrate Jira with GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab
What:
Connect Jira with GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab to link code commits and pull requests directly to Jira issues.
Why:
Integrating version control systems with Jira ensures that all code changes are tracked and linked to their corresponding Jira issues. This practice enhances traceability and accountability.
How it helps engineering managers:
Improves traceability of code changes.
Enhances visibility into the progress of development tasks.
Facilitates better collaboration between teams.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Simplifies the process of tracking code-related tasks.
Ensures that all development work is properly linked to Jira issues.
Aids in efficient sprint planning and backlog management.
Encourage regular deployments on lower environments like development and test
What:
Developers should be encouraged to regularly deploy their work on lower environments, such as development and test environments, to validate their work early and often.
Why:
Regular deployments in lower environments help identify and address issues early in the development cycle, ensuring that code is stable and ready for production. It also promotes continuous integration and delivery practices.
How it helps engineering managers:
Reduces the risk of major issues in production.
Improves the overall quality of the codebase.
Supports continuous delivery practices.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Facilitates early identification of issues.
Ensures smoother progress during sprints.
Improves collaboration between development and QA teams.
Use Epics for tracking features and stories for tracking different parts of the features
What:
Use Epics to track large features and Stories to manage smaller, releasable chunks of those features. Sub-tasks should then be used to track the smaller tasks within a Story, ensuring they are completed with the Story.
Why:
This structure helps in organising work effectively, making it easier to manage large projects by breaking them down into manageable parts. It also provides clarity on what is deliverable and when.
How it helps engineering managers:
Enhances clarity and focus in large projects.
Facilitates better tracking of progress across multiple teams.
Improves the organization of work and resource allocation.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Supports more efficient sprint planning and backlog management.
Provides a clear structure for breaking down and tracking work.
Ensures that work is organized in a way that aligns with delivery goals.
Move Issues to ‘Completed/Done’ Status Once Completed
What:
Once an issue is completed, it should be moved to the ‘Completed’ or ‘Done’ status in the project management tool to accurately reflect its progress.
Why:
Moving issues to the completed status allows for accurate tracking of how many issues were completed in a sprint, which is essential for calculating team velocity. It also helps in analyzing effort estimates and comparing them with similar completed issues in the past.
How it helps engineering managers:
Provides accurate data for measuring team velocity.
Enables analysis of effort estimation accuracy.
Helps in identifying patterns or trends in completed work.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Facilitates better sprint planning and retrospectives.
Ensures that the sprint's progress is accurately tracked.
Supports continuous improvement by comparing current work with historical data.
Nice to follow best practices:
Use as many built-in Jira fields as possible
What:
Utilize Jira's built-in fields rather than creating custom ones. This ensures consistency and easier management across projects.
Why:
Using standard Jira fields simplifies reporting, makes integrations smoother, and reduces maintenance overhead. Custom fields can complicate the system and make data extraction more complex.
How it helps engineering managers:
Reduces complexity in reporting.
Eases the integration with other tools.
Enhances data consistency across projects.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Simplifies tracking and management.
Makes the setup and configuration faster.
Ensures easier onboarding for new team members.
Identify issues of various types (definition, design, development, analytics, QA) using labels or issue types
What:
Categorize issues related to a feature by using specific labels or issue types in Jira for definition, design, development, analytics, and QA.
Why:
Clear categorization of issues helps in better tracking and managing the different phases of a feature. It also ensures that all necessary tasks are accounted for.
How it helps engineering managers:
Facilitates more detailed reporting and analytics.
Helps in ensuring all phases of a feature are adequately addressed.
Enhances coordination across teams by clearly defining responsibilities.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Simplifies the process of tracking progress on different aspects of a feature.
Makes it easier to identify missing tasks.
Aids in more efficient sprint planning and execution.
Maintain standards for various types of issues in Jira
What:
Establish and maintain standards for different types of issues, such as API stories, design stories, and requirement stories, ensuring consistency in subtask breakdowns.
Why:
Having standardized issue types and subtasks ensures consistency across similar tasks, which leads to more efficient project management and easier tracking.
How it helps engineering managers:
Ensures consistency across the board.
Facilitates easier cross-team collaboration.
Improves the predictability of project outcomes.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Simplifies the process of setting up new tasks.
Enhances clarity and reduces misunderstandings.
Aids in maintaining a clear and organized backlog.
Complete planned issues within a sprint as much as possible
What:
Strive to complete all planned issues within a sprint, avoiding issues that span multiple sprints unless absolutely necessary.
Why:
Completing issues within the same sprint helps maintain momentum, ensures timely delivery, and prevents work from dragging on indefinitely. If necessary, break down large issues into smaller, more manageable tasks.
How it helps engineering managers:
Enhances predictability and control over project timelines.
Reduces the risk of delays in feature delivery.
Improves team focus and productivity.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Ensures more accurate sprint planning and forecasting.
Helps in maintaining a consistent pace throughout the project.
Reduces spillover of tasks into subsequent sprints.
Integrate Jenkins/GitHub actions with Jira for deployment tracking
What:
Ensure that deployments done via Jenkins or GitHub Actions are integrated with Jira to automatically update the status and track deployments.
Why:
Integrating deployment tools with Jira provides real-time visibility into the deployment process, ensuring that all stakeholders are informed and any issues can be quickly addressed.
How it helps engineering managers:
Provides visibility into the deployment pipeline.
Ensures that deployment status is transparent and trackable.
Helps in quickly identifying and addressing deployment-related issues.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Facilitates better coordination between development and operations.
Ensures that deployment information is easily accessible.
Improves the overall release management process.
Separate analytics requirements stories from implementation stories
What:
Create distinct stories for analytics requirements and analytics implementation to ensure clear differentiation and tracking.
Why:
Separating requirements from implementation allows for clearer planning and execution of analytics tasks. It also helps in managing dependencies and ensuring that requirements are fully met before implementation begins.
How it helps engineering managers:
Provides clarity in analytics task management.
Ensures requirements are fully understood before implementation.
Improves the quality of analytics work.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Facilitates better planning and tracking of analytics tasks.
Ensures that analytics work is aligned with project goals.
Reduces the risk of miscommunication or missed requirements.
Avoid scope changes once the story starts; treat exceptions carefully
What:
Avoid making scope changes to a story once development has begun. If a change is unavoidable, handle it as an exception and carefully assess its impact.
Why:
Scope changes during development can lead to delays, confusion, and incomplete features. Managing scope carefully ensures that the team remains focused and that the project stays on track.
How it helps engineering managers:
Reduces the risk of project delays.
Ensures that features are delivered as planned.
Enhances focus and productivity within the team.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Improves sprint planning accuracy.
Prevents disruption of ongoing work.
Helps maintain a steady project pace.
Have test cases ready before development begins
What:
Ensure that test cases are prepared and documented before development starts on a feature, allowing developers to code with clear expectations.
Why:
Preparing test cases beforehand helps define clear acceptance criteria, guiding developers and ensuring that the feature is built to meet the desired outcomes. This approach reduces rework and accelerates delivery.
How it helps engineering managers:
Provides clarity on what the development should achieve.
Reduces rework and accelerates project timelines.
Improves communication between development and QA teams.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Enhances the accuracy of sprint planning.
Ensures that the definition of "done" is clear and measurable.
Supports a smoother handoff between development and testing.
Create sub-tasks for test cases or link test cases to development stories
What: For every story, either create sub-tasks that detail the test cases to be written, or link the test cases to the development stories using Jira’s linked issues feature. This ensures that testing is planned, tracked, and directly tied to the functionality being developed as part of the development process.
Why: Integrating test cases into the story as sub-tasks or linking them ensures that testing is an integral part of the development cycle. This approach leads to higher quality outputs, fewer bugs in production, and a more streamlined process for tracking both development and testing.
How it helps engineering managers:
Ensures comprehensive test coverage.
Reduces the likelihood of bugs reaching production.
Improves the overall quality of deliverables.
Facilitates better tracking of testing progress.
Enhances accountability in the development process.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Facilitates tracking of testing alongside development.
Ensures that testing is not overlooked or rushed.
Helps maintain high standards for quality.
Simplifies the process of tracking testing and development together.
Supports better reporting on the status of feature completion.
Track bugs using the ‘bug’ issue type and link them to original stories
What:
Use Jira's bug issue type to track all bugs, and ensure they are linked back to the original story or issue that introduced the bug.
Why:
Tracking bugs using a dedicated issue type and linking them to their source provides a clear trail of where issues originated, helping teams understand root causes and prevent future occurrences.
How it helps engineering managers:
Improves visibility into the causes of bugs.
Helps in identifying patterns or recurring issues.
Facilitates better post-mortem analysis and prevention strategies.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Simplifies tracking and prioritizing bug fixes.
Ensures that the impact of bugs is fully understood.
Aids in improving future sprint planning and quality control.
Use custom issue types only as an exception
What:
Minimize the use of custom issue types in Jira, relying on standard types like Epics, Stories, and Sub-tasks as much as possible. Custom issue types should only be used when absolutely necessary.
Why:
Limiting custom issue types ensures consistency and simplifies the management of issues. It also makes reporting easier and reduces confusion among team members.
How it helps engineering managers:
Simplifies project tracking and reporting.
Reduces the complexity of managing multiple projects.
Ensures consistency in how work is organized across teams.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Makes sprint planning and backlog management more straightforward.
Reduces the learning curve for team members.
Enhances overall project transparency and alignment.
Plan at Least 2 Sprints in Advance and Tag Stories to Future Sprints
What:
Plan and organize the work for at least two upcoming sprints, and ensure that stories are tagged to the appropriate future sprints based on their priority and dependencies.
Why:
Planning sprints in advance helps in aligning the team’s workload with the overall project timeline, allowing for better resource allocation and risk management. Tagging stories to future sprints ensures that there is a clear roadmap and that the team is prepared for upcoming tasks.
How it helps engineering managers:
Facilitates better long-term planning and resource allocation.
Helps in identifying potential risks or dependencies early.
Ensures alignment with project timelines and goals.
How it helps scrum masters and project managers:
Enhances sprint planning and backlog management.
Provides clarity on upcoming work, reducing last-minute changes.
Supports smoother transitions between sprints by ensuring that future work is well-prepared