Table of Contents
What are sprints and why would you want to view them in Jira
i. A more traditional usage of the term is to describe a short period of time (typically one month) where a team works intensively on delivering functionality, solving problems, and validating the solution in order to meet tight deadlines.
ii. A “sprint” is a hacky, one-off session where people work on a prototype of some feature or product. There are no formal checklists and no careful planning. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, this can be very effective.
iii. A “sprint” is also sometimes known as a “hackathon”, or simply as a “hack”. A hackathon allows for rapid prototyping as well as rapid iteration and development on the idea being prototyped.
iv. Since sprints are short, intense sessions, they can be very effective at providing valuable feedback to the team. People that participate in a sprint should report back with their findings and suggestions on the prototype.
How do you view previous sprints in Jira
ii. As the name suggests, Jira can be configured to display activity from previous sprints. In JIRA, you configure this view by going to Administration > Screens and then choosing Request Screens > Sprint Timeline. When choosing this option, you will be prompted for a Sprint ID. This is a unique identifier for each sprint and contains up to nine characters. In the screenshot below, we are using sprint 2 as our example:
The sprint timeline is displayed in the upper right of the internal dashboards. When viewing a sprint, you can click and drag to reorder a sprint’s activity. This can be helpful if your team has worked on several different sprints and you want to see the activity for each one. For example, you may have worked on an initial release for a sprint that was followed by a subsequent bug fix release or feature development for a later sprint.
iii. In addition to activity for a specific sprint, Jira can also display the list of sprints that have completed within the past year. In the screenshot below, we’ve clicked on the ‘Completed Sprints’ link to show all previous sprints that have recently completed.
When choosing this option, you will be prompted for a Sprint ID and Product ID or a Product Name or any combination of these options. As with the previous option, this is an identifier for each sprint that contains up to nine characters. In the screenshot below, we are using sprint 2 as our example.
What are the benefits of viewing previous sprints in Jira
iii. When viewing past sprints, the value of this Jira feature becomes clear. For example, if you are currently in sprint 3 but need to refer back to an older sprint that had issues that you need to resolve, you can quickly find what needs to be done by viewing the corresponding timeline. This also has another benefit of improving transparency across teams as it removes the need to have another team member create a new ticket for something that has already gone through QA when all of the relevant information is sitting in Jira.
iv. Having this tool in Jira is a great way to document business processes, communicate with clients and teams, and provide stakeholders with better information about the product.
v. You can always view the full history of a sprint by going to the “History” tab on the Build page. By default, Jira will filter out any completed sprints so you are only looking at a list of uncompleted sprints.
How do you use the information from past sprints to improve your current sprint process
iv. Because Jira is collecting all of this information from previous sprints, it provides an excellent opportunity to identify tasks that do not belong in the current sprint. This is especially true if you are working on a complex feature, as you can find tasks that have not been completed for previous sprints and can add them to your current sprint. This has the added benefit of providing you with an opportunity to add unplanned work to your current sprint, thereby giving you a better idea of how much work you can complete in a single sprint.
v. You can use the information from previous sprints to improve your current sprint process. For example, if you are struggling with a specific technical task that is related to work done in a previous sprint, and you have not completed your work yet, then you can get it ready now and add it to the current sprint. This will give you more time for everyone’s work in the next sprint.
vi. The information from previous sprints can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your current sprint process. For example, you can use the information from past sprints to determine what percentage of tasks were completed on time and what percentage were not. If you notice a trend for certain types of tasks, then you can make adjustments to your processes so that the same thing does not happen again in future sprints.
