Using Agile methodologies

If your team's work is organized around Agile development methodologies, try using issue boards in Tracker. You can use boards to track your team's current issues, e.g., during daily meetings. On the board, issues are shown as cards assigned to columns depending on their status.

A board with a backlog and sprints in Yandex Tracker

You can also create multiple issue boards.

  1. In the left panel, select  Boards and click New board.

  2. Select the board type.

  3. Click Add issues to add issues. In the window that opens, choose which issues should be automatically added to the board, and set the filters to show only issues with certain parameters on the board.

For example, you can set up filters in such a way so that all issues from your queue are displayed on the board, or only issues with certain components or assignees are displayed, and so on.

Board types in Tracker

Tracker has two types of boards:

Tools available on boards with a backlog and sprints

На доске «С бэклогом и спринтами» доступны инструменты, которые помогут организовать работу по методологии Скрам. Learn more about Scrum

Sprints

In Scrum, work is performed in short iterations called sprints. A sprint usually lasts one or two weeks. Try to plan sprints so that the team has time to complete all the planned issues during the sprint. To understand the scope of the planned work, estimate the issues in advance using planning poker.

  • Click Create sprint on the right side of the board.

  • Create a sprint: Choose its name, duration, and set the start and end dates.

  • Add issues to the sprint: drag issues from the Backlog column to the sprint issue list, or on the issue page specify the sprint in the Agile → Sprint field.

How to plan a sprint in Tracker

To show the issues from a specific sprint on the board, select the sprint at the top of the page. To track issue completion speed for the issues included in a sprint use a burndown chart.

Planning poker

To accurately plan the scope of work for the next sprint, you need to estimate the effort required for the issues. For this purpose, Scrum uses planning poker. This method allows you to get independent estimates of an issue from all team members, discuss them, and form a final estimate. The relative unit of effort, Story Point, is usually used for estimation.

  • To conduct the estimation, ask team members to go to the poker page. To do this, on the issue board click Poker and copy the link to invite participants.

  • In the board settings, you can set the issue estimation scale and the rules for calculating the final estimate.

How to use planning poker in Tracker

Burndown chart

The burn down chart shows the speed of issue completion and the remaining amount of work during the sprint. You can use it to predict whether the team will complete the planned issues on time.

On the chart, the vertical axis shows the total amount of remaining work in Story Points, and the horizontal axis shows time. An ideal burn down chart should be close to a straight line that starts at the point with the maximum amount of work (the total volume of issues in the sprint) on the first day of the sprint and ends at the zero point on the last day of the sprint.

To view the chart, on the issue board click the Burn down chart tab. How to use the burn down chart

Issue breakdown

In Agile development methodologies, issues are decomposed as follows:

  • Major issues that cannot be completed within one iteration or sprint, are referred to as epics.

  • Epics break down into user stories, which are finalized product features implementable within a single sprint.

  • User Stories are split into individual issues, e.g., GUI design, backend development, and frontend development.

Чтобы использовать такую систему декомпозиции задач, в шаблоне очереди «Разработка» предусмотрены типы задач Epic и Story. If you selected a template when creating the queue that does not include the Epic and Story issue types, you can add them in the queue settings.

Agile methodologies are collaborative approaches where work is completed in short cycles, such as sprints. Popular Agile methodologies include Scrum and Kanban.

A sprint is a short work cycle in Agile, usually lasting 1–4 weeks. In Tracker, sprints are used on boards with backlogs and sprints.