How do Features relate to Sprints and Stories relate to Program Increments in Jira Align

Summary

In Jira Align (JA) the hierarchy matches Features with Program Increments and Stories with Sprints, however in some reports and screens, Features may be displayed against Sprints or Sprint Anchors and Stories may be displayed against unexpected Program Increments (PIs).

This article explains the relationships and why this happens.

Solution

Some facts about what fields are set against Feature and Stories:

• Feature Details include a field for their assigned PI and also shows links to any child stories

• Feature Details do have fields for Target Start and Target Completion sprints

  • these are just setting target start and end dates, which are then used in the roadmap screens, they are not a direct links from the feature to the sprints/anchors

  • setting these is not the cause of sprints/sprint anchors showing relationships to features in most other reports and screens

• Feature Details do not contain a field that directly links the feature to to sprints or sprint anchors

• The Feature Quick View page (in the Program Board), also contains a Team Target Completions Sprint value

  • this defines which column the feature is shown in within the Program Board

  • setting this is not the cause of sprints/sprint anchors showing relationships to features in most other reports and screens

• Story Details contain a field for their assigned sprint and also a field for their parent Feature

• Story Details do contain a field for the PI

  • If a parent Feature has been set in the Story then this field displays the PI of the Feature.

  • If a Team and Sprint are set in a new story with no parent Feature, then this field displays the PI that is the parent of the chosen sprint (after the first save). This will also happen with stories created in Jira that have a sprint but no parent Epic set.

  • These two points show that while the PIs is set/displayed in the story, it is usually set via other relationships, although choosing the PI make first, makes choosing the sprint easier as it filters the list, and there is an exception where the PI can be set with no parent feature or sprint set.

Based on the above facts what causes Features to be shown as linked to Sprints/Anchors?

Apart from where the target sprint settings may have an effect, in most reports and screens, if a Feature shows some kind of relationship to a sprint or sprint anchor then it is because the feature has child stories, and the child stories are assigned to the sprints in question

• If a Feature has no child stories (or only child stories that are linked to the Unassigned Backlog) then it will not show a relationship to a Sprint / Anchor

• If a Feature has multiple child stories that are linked to different sprints then it will show relationships to more then one Sprint / Anchor

• Affected reports that show a Feature is related to a Sprint Anchor, instead of a Sprint, are because the report may include multiple Teams under a Program, so displaying the Anchor Name is more appropriate, as each Team will have its own sprint, that is linked to the same Sprint Anchor

Based on the above facts what causes Stories to be shown as linked to an unexpected Program Increment (PI)?

Most stories will have a relationship via a sprint or a feature to a PI so seeing PIs linked to stories in reports is not unexpected. Usually the PI shown linked to a story comes from the parent feature or the associated sprint and will match the PI displayed in the details of the story.

It is possible to create a situation where the sprint set in a story is under a different PI from the one set in the parent feature. This is known as a mismatch and in some reports will cause stories to be displayed as being linked to an unexpected PI. Such a mismatch can also result in points data of the stories affecting the totals shows in reports and screens that manipulate the numerical data. As this causes confusion we recommend such mismatches are addressed when found. Affected stories will show a warning message in the details panel about the mismatch.