Program Manager
With Structure, you can easily create a visual overview of your projects – and visualize all the data you need to track on a single screen.
Step 1: Build Your Structure
To create a new structure:
- Open the Structure Selector menu and select Create New Structure
- Use the +Add menu to add issues and build your hierarchy:
- Use Presets to use one of Structure's preconfigured hierarchies
- Or configuring your own hierarchy using +Add | Insert | Basic Insert, +Add | Group, and +Add | Extend
Step 2: Add Data
- Jira fields, such as status, assignee, sprint, or remaining estimate
- Progress - track status based on issue progress, percent completion, or resolution
- Formulas - create your own formulas to compare fields or create a visual report
Tempo Work Logged - track how long your team is spending on each issue
Once you've added your columns, you can aggregate the data up the structure. To do so, open the column you want to aggregate and select Sum over sub-items.
Step 1: Build a SAFe Structure
To create a structure for SAFe:
- Open the Structure Selector menu and select Create New Structure
- Add initiatives: +Add | Insert | JQL Query | enter the appropriate JQL, such as
"Project = 'project name' AND issuetype = initiative"
- Add epics below initiatives: +Add | Extend | Linked Items | choose the type and direction used to assign Epics to Initiatives, such as "Implements" or "Parent (Advanced Roadmaps)"
- Add issues belonging to epics: +Add | Extend | Issues under Epics
- Add sub-tasks: +Add | Extend | Sub-tasks
- Sort by rank: +Add | Sort | Field | select "Rank"
If you use a custom field for planning, such as Planning Increments, you can group issues by this field as well: +Add | Group | select the custom field
Step 2: Add Data
- Jira fields, such as status, assignee, sprint, or remaining estimate
- Progress - track status based on issue progress, percent completion, or resolution
- Formulas - create your own formulas to compare fields or create a visual report
Tempo Work Logged - track how long your team is spending on each issue
Once you've added your columns, you can aggregate the data up the structure. To do so, open the column you want to aggregate and select Sum over sub-items.
The following guide will walk you through an advanced SAFe implementation in Structure.
Requirements
To do this, you will need:
- Jira Software and Confluence
- Structure
- Structure.Pages
- Structure.Testy
Ready-to-use demo space: Live Demo
Before You Begin
We assume that your Jira is prepared for scaling. The most common configuration is to create separate projects for each level:
- Kanban project for Portfolio level, with the following Epic issue type and statuses: Funnel, Reviewing, Analyzing, Portfolio Backlog, Implementing and Done
- Kanban project for Solution level, with the following Issue types: Capability and Enabler
- Kanban project for Program level, with the following issue types: Feature and Enabler
Features are named "Epics" in Jira, so you can rename them in Administration. Projects for each Team (Scrum or kanban, Scrum is preferable) and Issue types (User Story, Bug, Improvement, Enabler) can be left as is.
Step-by-step guide
- Define your company Strategy in Confluence
Create a Space in Confluence for high-level documents and describe the Strategy of your company. - Define Themes
Define Strategy more precisely by dividing it into several themes, each a sub-page of Strategy. - Link Themes to Epics
Define Epics, or high-level tasks for implementing your theme. Link Jira issues with their corresponding themes in Confluence. - Add Capabilities
Since you have a separate project for Capabilities, divide your Epics into more precise Capability issues and put them into a Capability Board. Don't forget to link each Capability with a corresponding Epic! You can use standard Jira issue link types, but it will be more convenient to create you own "implements"/ "is implemented by" link type. - Add Features
Add details to any large Capabilities and divide them into Features. Don't forget to link each Feature to its corresponding Capability. - Stories
Each Feature can be divided into more detailed Stories. Don't forget to link Features and Stories with an epic link. - Sub-tasks
If you need more detailed tasks, divide Stories into Sub-tasks. - Put it all together with Structure
Create an empty Structure and visualize everything in one place: http://recordit.co/lFYAzeBezV
- Find your Strategy page and add it to the Structure: http://recordit.co/0vt6mNYsqR
- Click the Automation button to enable automation. Then click the + icon next to the Automation button, and use the Extend generator to add the following rules:
- Add all child pages (extend | child pages): http://recordit.co/5l5fqPM4c3
- Add issues linked to pages
- Add Capabilities linked to Epics
- Add Features linked to Capabilities
- Add Stories linked to Features
- Add add Sub Tasks linked to Stories - Take it to the next level!
Now that your structure is created, you can modify it to fit your needs:
- You can Group issues on a specific level. For example, group by Sprint on the Team level to track progresses.
- You can prioritize issues by sorting by WSJF.
- You can specify your Objective during PI planning in Notes.