If you’ve ever used the default Timeline view in a Jira board, you’ll know that it is rather limited in what you can do with it.

On the other hand the Plans functionality in Jira Premium (formerly Advanced Roadmaps) is now a pretty polished offering and has a lot of flexibility for how you can use it. It has been designed to help manage complex pieces of work that span multiple projects, teams and durations.

In this article, we’ll get into a handful of pro-tips for getting the best out of this amazing feature, as well as some traps to avoid.

The Tips

In no particular order, here’s some pointers on things you should be aiming to do with Jira Plans.

Index Multiple Projects

One major draw-card with Plans is the ability to visualise issues across multiple projects. While you can do this in regular Jira Boards by editing the underlying filter query for that board, you don’t get anywhere near the flexibility for how you visualise the work.

It also doesn’t matter if the projects all use different workflows, issue types and other schemes; Jira Plans are flexible enough to handle it. It is especially good at handling Releases across multiple projects.

Use multiple views

Another power-feature is the ability to have any number of different views that offer different representations of the same underlying issue data. These views can differ in almost every facet, including:

• How issues are grouped
• The time span to visualise
• The heirarchy of issues to display
• The filters applied
• The columns that are displayed in the list of issues
• The colour coding of the Gantt chart bars

This flexibility allows you to maintain a wide spectrum of views, from a view that powers day-to-day discussions about work in flight, to summary views that cover the big roadmap items for use at the executive level.

And the best thing is that all these views are powered by the underlying issue data. If the issues are up to date, so are the views.

Use scenarios to experiment

Another powerful feature is the ability to have multiple scenarios that represent a ‘draft state’ of how a timeline might look. This allows you to see how a plan might look if you were to change facets such as resourcing, concurrency, scope or priority without changing the work in flight.

If you decide you actually want to adopt a particular scenario as the actual plan, you can apply the proposed changes to the issues making it the actual plan.

Leverage rolled-up forecasts

One of the best features of Jira Plans is the abilty to set the forecast of Epics from the issues underneath. This works with any issues that have a Parent issue set.

This is a massive time-saver that means that you aren’t forever changing the due date of your epics when the due dates of the underlying issues change.

Utilise the warnings in ways of working

I love the warnings that are displayed on a plan when things start to go awry. Any issues that have planning defects are denoted with an orange warning sign next to it.

The most common trigger is that the issue is still open after it’s due date has come and gone. Other reasons can include that an issue has a start date that is earlier than the due date of an issue on which it has a dependency.

Teams that are able to successfully able to address warnings in advance of planning sessions and rituals and /or create conversation during rituals around these warnings are going to get the best results from using Jira Plans.

Traps to avoid

No list of pro-tips would be complete without a list of things to avoid or watch out for, and as a complex feature, Jira Plans are no exception.

Missing start or end dates

If you are missing both a start and end date, the bar representing the timeline for that issue will simply not be displayed. But if you have one and not the other, then the bar will show as having an indeterminate start or end. This is represented by a fading bar that extends along the timeline.

This can be particularly troublesome where dates for epics are rolled up as it can push out the start / end of that higher level issue. To get the best value out of plans, your team has to commit to being discliplined with maintaining dates on issues.

Auto-forecasting

This is a bit of a black box of a feature that can save a lot of time if used well but can just as easily ruin days if misused. If you are going to give Auto-forecasting a crack, here’s some things to try:

• Set up scenarios for your plan and use a dedicated scenario just for autoforecasting changes. This will avoid blowing away changes being staged by other users on the default scenario.
• Operate on a small selection of issues at once. By default, auto-forecasting will operate on all issues in a plan. Try to select a smaller set of issues to plan as this will be a lot easier to review the proposed timeline
• Set up and apply Teams to issues that you want to forecast. The number of team members and hours available is an input to forecasting.
• Ensure issues have dependencies and forecasts set. Auto-forecasting uses these as inputs to determine the optimal start and end dates.

Forgetting to commit changes

A common trap is making changes in a Jira Plan and then forgetting to review and commit them. All changes are made to the active scenario first, and require a manual step to apply them.

This catches out even the most savvy of Jira power-users on occassion - myself included!

Blowing away or committing others changes

By default, reviewing and committing will apply all staged changes across the issues. In a team where multiple people are using Jira Plans to maintain their work, you should ensure that people are using the available filter to select just their own changes when reviewing.

This will hide the changes of others from the Review screen, ensuring that they can’t be accidentally committed or discarded.

In summary

Jira Plans are an extremely powerful addition to Jira that requires the next level of discipline in both planning and maintenance to get the best results from.

If your team is prepared to commit to the additional expense and effort to bring Plans to their ways of working, the payoff is a super flexible way to visualise and plan their work.

Photo by Oscar Sutton