Using Agile methodologies

If your team leverages Agile development methodology, try Agile 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.

You can also create multiple issue boards. This can be useful if you have multiple work groups or issue types:

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:

• Basic boards have the least features and display the team's issues and issue statuses.

• Boards with a backlog and sprints display issue statuses. From these boards, you can manage sprints and the backlog, estimate issues, and view burndown charts.

Tools available on boards with a backlog and sprints

Boards with a backlog and sprints offer tools that help organize your workflow according to the Scrum methodology:

Sprints

Teams using the Scrum methodology work in small iterations called sprints. One sprint usually last for one or two weeks. Try planning your sprint so that your team can complete all the issues scheduled for the sprint. To gain a better insight into your scope of work, first estimate your issues by playing the planning poker.

To schedule a sprint in Tracker :

• 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 your sprint: drag tasks from the Backlog column to the sprint issues list. Alternatively, you can specify a sprint in the Agile → Sprint field on the issue page.

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 set a realistic schedule for the upcoming sprint, evaluate the expected effort for each issue. This is where the Scrum's Planning Poker comes handy. This method lets each member of your team score issues on their complexity independently, discuss the results, and finally pin down the total estimate. This scoring method usually involves relative issue complexity points called Story Points.

How to use planning poker in Tracker:

• To estimate your issues, ask your team members to go to the poker page. To do this, click  Poker on the issue board and copy the invite link.

• You can also set the issue estimation scale and specify rules for calculating the final score in the board settings.

Burndown chart

A burndown chart shows the issue completion rate and the remaining amount of work within a single sprint. You can use the burndown chart to assess whether the team will be able to complete all planned tasks on time.

The vertical axis of the chart shows how much work the team has left to do in Story Points, while the horizontal axis shows time. An ideal burnout chart should be close to a straight line: it should start at a point with a maximum scope of work (the total of all the issues in the sprint) on day 1 of the sprint and end at zero on the last day of the sprint.

To view the burndown chart in Tracker, select Burndown chart on the issue board.

Issue breakdown

In Agile development methodologies, issues are broken down 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.

The Development queue template provides Epic and Story issue types to accommodate such an issue decomposition system. If you picked a template that does not include Epic or Story issues when creating a queue, you can manually add them in the queue settings.