Tracking Epics across multiple projects

[Paul Stadler]

Hi,

We've been running multiple projects for multiple "project teams" all under one large project umbrella. We've discovered that epics are a nice way to link that work across project teams together, but several issues have come up as a result. Epics themselves live in yet a third project, for management and prioritization. I'm hoping someone here can help us sort out what we need to do.

1. Epic level burndown -- There doesn't appear to be a mechanism to do this. We're able to create a filter for a list of epics (cross-project burndown), but the time-frame doesn't work out because that filter doesn't necessarily correlate to a sprint duration.
2. Estimate roll-ups -- We're seeing that folks want to put hours under the epic (as sub-tasks), but that doesn't allow for proper estimation because the work occurs in a separate project, by a "project team". Is there some way to get a roll-up of all work across the system into the epic? So far, we've looked at just writing SQL queries to accomodate this... but the roll-ups in the epic-project are incorrect as a result (in the JIRA UI).

Is it possible that these are addressed in a later version?

BTW, we're running version 4.4.1 of GreenHopper, and 4.1.1 of JIRA.

Thanks,

Paul

[Ed Guy]

This is the only way I have been able to roll up status of an Epic across multiple projects.  Perhaps it will be useful to you.

• An Epic, "My Epic", in Project A has as children, User Stories A-1, A-2, A-3 (User Stories added to the Epic via drag-n-drop in the Agile Scrum Board "Plan" view.
  
  • Issue type "User Story" could be any issue in "standardissuteypes()" that is not an Epic.
• Move User Story A-2 to Project B, maintaining the issue type (becomes User Story B-99)
• Move User Story A-3 to Project C, maintaining the issue type (becomes User Story C-999).

Obviously, you will need create/view/edit privileges in all 3 projects.

• As User Stories A-1, B-99, and C-999 are estimated and completed the Epic Report for "My Epic" will reflect the estimates and status of the 3 User Stories.
• If you define a sprint, "Sprint ABC 1" in Project A that includes all 3 User Stories the Epic Burndown report should work equally well.
• A sprint defined in Project B will only see User Story B-99 from "My Epic"
• A sprint defined in Project C will only see User Story C-999 from "My Epic"

The trick, here, is that you must maintain the hierarchical relationship between the Epic and its children.  If Projects B and C "Move" their User Stories to Epics the parent-child relationship is lost.

If anyone has found a different method that works I would love to hear about it.

Have a great day!

Ed

[Anupama Atmuri]

I have similar requirement as you have...Paul . I have an Epic with several related Issues across different Projects. Can Epic duration be viewed as sum of 'related' Issues duration? Please note that Issues under an Epic are not necessarily sub-tasks under the same Epic. Instead Issues are spread across projects and are linked to Epic. I am using JIRA + Agile +Gantt Chart plugin. Any ideas as to how to resolve this?

[Anupama Atmuri]

I have similar requirement as Paul has. I have an Epic with several related Issues across different Projects. Can Epic duration be viewed as sum of 'related' Issues duration? Please note that Issues under an Epic are not necessarily sub-tasks under the same Epic. Instead Issues are spread across projects and are linked to Epic. I am using JIRA + Agile +Gantt Chart plugin.

[George Carvill]

I have a suggestion for this question:

https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/87277/epics-beget-stories-and-stories-beget-subtasks

[Adam Saint-Prix]

Hi Paul,

You would need to upgrade to at least JIRA 4.4.3 and GreenHopper 5.8 in order to use the Rapid Boards. That's when they were first made available.

If you are going to upgrade, I'd probably recommend moving to JIRA 5.1 and GH 6 though after testing new features in your environment. Lots of improvements across the board in both.

I would check out what's new in GreenHopper and JIRA 5.1 for more.

[Paul Stadler]

Thanks Adam.

Yes, we want to upgrade. It just turns out that the upgrade is likely non-trivial for us, spinning up into another large project that doesn't really get the answer for us immediately. Thanks though. I have access to another JIRA instance that is on 5.1 (hosted) that I can experient with. I'll have a look at rapid boards there as proof-of-concept.

Cheers, Paul

[Adam Saint-Prix]

Understood. Good luck.

[Matt]

Greenhopper's Rapid board is able to work on a few projects at the same time.

You may try to set up rapid board for multiple projects and have Burndown statistics for epics.

[Paul Stadler]

Thanks Matt,

I'll look into it... but unfortunately the version we're running doesn't have a rapid board.

Thanks, Paul