We are using the Scrum process for a number of projects. When planning a new sprint we start with a prioritised product backlog and estimate the highest priority items until we have enough points for the sprint. When we move the user stories and other tasks from the product backlog to the sprint backlog all items end up having the same priority. Is there a way to keep the priorities of the tasks so that we do not have to reprioritise them in the sprint backlog?
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xProcess has a very flexible mechanism for defining priorities using "Prioritised Groups" which allows any Folder or Parent Task which has been "prioritised" to support ordering of tasks within it. Each Prioritised Group can be given a "weight" so that all the priorities can be combined into the ordered list that the scheduler uses. As with many of the very flexible mechanisms in the product, when you actually tailor the product for a given process (Basic Scrum in this case), you have to make some decisions about the normal way to use the features.
Basic Scrum defines Sprints as prioritised Parent Tasks with diminishing weight (later Sprints therefore have lower wieght and scheduled after the earlier ones). As you've observed when you move a task from one Sprint to the next the priorities they had in the previous Sprint gets lost. So if this is a normal part of your process - I can understand why it could be - why not define another prioritised group (say a Folder called Release Backlog) where you can give your stories a longer lasting relative priority. The weight for this group does not need to be high because it will just be the "tie-breaker" when stories have the same priority in Sprint. I think this should achieve what your aiming for, though do come back with questions or other suggestions.
Andy.
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Thank you, Andy. We have now created a folder for prioritizing and add all issues by adding relevant categories to the folder. It seems to work as intended.
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Great. There are lots of possibilities with this way of prioritising. One we considered but didn't use in the end is a voting system for the Change Control Board, or even key customers, who can select their own top priorities in their Folder and order them within their list. The possibilities in fact are endless!
:-)
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We are using the Scrum process for a number of projects. When planning a new sprint we start with a prioritised product backlog and estimate the highest priority items until we have enough points for the sprint. When we move the user stories and other tasks from the product backlog to the sprint backlog all items end up having the same priority. Is there a way to keep the priorities of the tasks so that we do not have to reprioritise them in the sprint backlog?
xProcess has a very flexible mechanism for defining priorities using "Prioritised Groups" which allows any Folder or Parent Task which has been "prioritised" to support ordering of tasks within it. Each Prioritised Group can be given a "weight" so that all the priorities can be combined into the ordered list that the scheduler uses. As with many of the very flexible mechanisms in the product, when you actually tailor the product for a given process (Basic Scrum in this case), you have to make some decisions about the normal way to use the features.
Basic Scrum defines Sprints as prioritised Parent Tasks with diminishing weight (later Sprints therefore have lower wieght and scheduled after the earlier ones). As you've observed when you move a task from one Sprint to the next the priorities they had in the previous Sprint gets lost. So if this is a normal part of your process - I can understand why it could be - why not define another prioritised group (say a Folder called Release Backlog) where you can give your stories a longer lasting relative priority. The weight for this group does not need to be high because it will just be the "tie-breaker" when stories have the same priority in Sprint. I think this should achieve what your aiming for, though do come back with questions or other suggestions.
Andy.
Thank you, Andy. We have now created a folder for prioritizing and add all issues by adding relevant categories to the folder. It seems to work as intended.
Great. There are lots of possibilities with this way of prioritising. One we considered but didn't use in the end is a voting system for the Change Control Board, or even key customers, who can select their own top priorities in their Folder and order them within their list. The possibilities in fact are endless!
:-)