Setting up an agile project

hemsmurali · 09/04/18

Sorry for the long post but need help setting up an agile project spanning multiple sprints. I am new to Smartsheet and so any help is greatly appreciated. The project is currently in progress and our goal is to launch phase 1 of this project by Jan 2019. I have 7 developers and we usually plan our sprints based on the number of story points each person has available for that sprint (2 week sprint). Typically, a full capacity would be 18 story points. I am now asked to create a timeline to see how the various stories line up and when we can launch what. The factors to consider while putting together this timeline are: dependencies between various stories, how many devs can work on the stories each sprint. I already have the estimates (in story points) for all the stories in the backlog. I understand how to create a backlog and setup the sprints. But what I am struggling with is figuring out how to plan capacity based on story points and how I can create a projected timeline. Please advise.

J. Craig Williams · 09/04/18

LOL. "Long post" Sorry. It is late and that post looks like you had time to go back and edit it. I know that does not help and for that I apologize.

I'm not a agile developer, so any advice I would give would be outdated. In my opinion, you'll be hard-pressed to do everything you want as part of an agile team completely in Smartsheet, but there are others who can chime in on the details.

For resource management, check out:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/1346969-resource-management-allocation-team-enterprise-only-

and here's the beginner's guide to the project columns:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/765737-project-sheet-columns-start-date-end-date-duration-complete-and-predecessors

Agile teams sometimes prefer Kanban, so check out this:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2302238-using-card-view-to-visualize-your-project

Smartsheet does not have an effort to duration functionality. It has to be built by the end-user.

If you are using Jira, Smartsheet's integration might help, but it is an add-on cost:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2476126-jira-connector-admin-setup-cloud-self-hosted-server

I hope that gets you started and others comment to fill in the specifics.

Craig