Spotlight on SpiraTeam 5.4 - New Agile Task and Incident Boards

January 16th, 2018 by inflectra

As we're in the final countdown for the release of the latest version of SpiraTest, SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan v5.4, we are going to be highlighting some of the most important new features in this version to help you get ready for the release. Last week we discussed the new graphs and charts, so this time we shall be illustrating some of the new agile software development features in SpiraTeam v5.4, specifically the new board views we've introduced for tasks and incidents.

Quick Recap - Planning Boards

As you know we've had agile planning boards in SpiraTeam for quite some time. From the earliest version of SpiraPlan and SpiraTeam v2.0 back in 2009 we realized that having a way to quickly visualize the different requirements and tasks in a project, their priority, their status and who is working on them, was a fundamental key to managing an agile project. The concept has its roots in the original agile manifesto, and the use of yellow 'post-it' sticky notes on whiteboards to refer to user stories. For those interested in history, here's the earliest agile planning board in SpiraTeam v3.2:

 

It was completely rewritten in v4.2 to provide a better set of options for planning requirements and incidents across a project.For the first time, the test cases and tasks were shown as mini-cards inside the main requirement story cards. This streamlined the management and provided requirements test coverage and task metrics for every requirement in the plan.

 

It was restyled in v5.0 to make it look more aesthetic:

Finally, we added a project group / program-level planning board option in SpiraTeam v5.1 to make program planning easier:

However based on feedback and suggestions from our customers, it was not enough. We realized that the current planning boards were requirement-centric, which was good for project managers and program managers, but less useful for developers and testers. They wanted a way to also see their assigned tasks in a similar view. For maintenance projects, our customers also explained that an incident/defect equivalent would be really useful.

Task Board View

With SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan v5.4 you now have two different views of the project tasks - the board view and the table view:

The table view is the new name for the task list page that you are familiar with:

 

When you click on the new Board option, you will see the same projects tasks displayed in their own agile task board:

This task board works in a similar way to the existing SpiraTeam planning boards. You have a dropdown selector that lets you choose the display level (All Releases, Specific Release, Specific Iteration) and the view (by person, by iteration, by priority and by status). You can drag and drop the tasks between people, statuses, iterations, releases, and priorities to visually manage and optimize the project.

Incident Board View

With SpiraTeam and SpiraPlan v5.4 you also have two different views of the project incidents/defects- the board view and the table view - same as with tasks:

The table view is the new name for the incident list page that you are familiar with:

 

Just as we saw in the tasks section, when you click on the new Board option, you will see the same projects incidents displayed in their own agile board view:

 

This incident board works in a similar way to the existing SpiraTeam planning boards. You have a dropdown selector that lets you choose the display level (All Releases, Specific Release, Specific Iteration) and the view (by person, by iteration, by priority and by status). You can drag and drop the incidents between people, statuses, iterations, releases, and priorities to visually manage and optimize the project.

 

This new view is particularly useful for maintenance / support projects that are primarily working with defects, change requests and small enhancements, rather than fresh development. You can now visualize the flow and work in progress (WIP) of your maintenance and support items by status right from the incident board.

 

Other Agile Enhancements

Finally we took this opportunity to add a small but much requested enhancement that lets you quickly split a requirement and user story into two separate items, so they can be assigned to different iterations or sprints:

You can then choose how many story points (from the original estimate) to transfer to the new requirement being created:

 

Once it has been created, you can see the relationship between the original requirement and one split from it, since SpiraTeam will automatically add an association between them for you:


As always, we hope you enjoy these new features, and let us know if you have suggestions and ideas for future versions of SpiraTeam...

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