JIRA, briefly

JIRA Project

JIRA 'Project' is the highest level container, and can be created from the JIRA homepage.
In JIRA the SCRUM workflow template is the default option when creating a new project.

Issues

An 'Issue' in JIRA is a single work item within a project. An issue can be created from the '+' button on the left of the screen from within a project.
An issue should take at least a few hours, but not more than 3 days.
Issue types are :

• Stories
• Tasks
• Epics
• Bugs

Stories

Stories are planned work for a specific feature, e.g. as a user I need to delete any element of a list.

Tasks

Tasks any other planned non-story work, e.g. create the new custom module table.
Unplanned work, e.g. Put '+44' at the beginning of UK phone numbers.

Epics

An epic is a collection of stories and tasks to achieve a noteworthy outcome. Sometimes it's a good idea to think of epics at the beginning of a project and fill them with stories and tasks as you get into the detail of a project.

Labels & Components

Labels and Components are tags applied to issues which allow you to filter issues.

Labels

Labels e.g. Front-end, back-end, red-team, blue-team.

Components

Components e.g. User profile module, machine learning engine.

Backlog

'Backlog' refers to the product backlog document in SCRUM. There is a Backlog link on the left of the JIRA screen within each project.
The backlog list in JIRA contains stories and tasks. You can use this list to priortise the work into sprint size blocks.
The backlog also contains epics which you can drag and drop into priority order. You can also then drag stories and tasks into those epics.
The backlog also contains an 'All issues' section from which you can see all stories and tasks which are colour coded by the epics you have prioritised them to.
The All issues list within the backlog also contains a list of sprints. You can drag and drop stories and tasks into sprints by priority order. At the bottom of each spint list is an estimate of how long the combined issues should take. This should help you stay within sprint period i.e. normally 2 weeks.

Story points

Story points are a relative measure of complexity, e.g. 13 is harder than 5. Perhaps early on, it's a good idea to give a 2-3 hour issue a story point of 1, whereas an issue taking 3 days could get a story point of 13.

Starting a sprint

Click the 'Start sprint' button at the top of the Backlog. You should add a start and end date in the dialog box.
Click the 'Active sprints' link to the left of the project screen. This will show you what's called the 'boards'. As you work through the sprint, you will drag issues from the TO DO, to the IN PROGRESS, to the DONE boards.