The document discusses how JIRA Portfolio can help organizations plan projects by organizing backlogs, managing team capacity and release cadences, and visualizing dependencies and strategic initiatives. It highlights key features like organizing backlogs, planning with team capacity and releases in mind, and ensuring dependencies are considered. The goal is to help answer common questions around delivering on time, reacting to changing priorities, and keeping focused on overall business goals.

1. WALTER BUGGENHOUT • ATLASSIAN EXPERT • ACA IT-SOLUTIONS
Failing to plan: your best plan for failure
And how JIRA Portfolio can help you avoid this

2. Familiar situations?
Can you tell me exactly
when you will be releasing
to production?
Can someone
show me if all our
strategic projects are still
on track?
Sorry, but priorities
have changed. Can you
show me what that means
for our business
goals?

3. Whoever is careless with the truth in small
matters cannot be trusted with important
matters.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
”
“

4. Whoever is careless with the truth in small
matters cannot be trusted with important
matters.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
”
“

5. Introducing
JIRA Portfolio

6. Strategic
initiatives
Issues / Epics
Versions
Projects

7. Issues / Epics
Versions
Projects
Strategic
initiatives

8. Organised backlog
Team Capacity Release Cadence
Portfolio Plan

11. Organizing
the Backlog

12. Creating the backlog
Create issues manually
Import issues from a file
Import issues from JIRA
Selection through saved filters
Hierarchy and priority from JIRA are retained
Status, estimate and progress information are retained

14. Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Epic Epic
Initiative

18. Managing
Team Capacity

20. Info at organization level
Global holiday calendar
At team level
Team Schedule (scrum / kanban)
Team velocity (for scrum teams)
JIRA users or Virtual Team Members (e.g. for new hires)

21. Info at individual level
Working hours in team
Membership of 1/more teams
Exceptions to normal presence
Absences (vacation, illness, …)

22. Releases and
Streams

24. Fixed start date (e.g. to apply to first release)
Start date relative to previous release (before / after)

25. Stories can only be linked to 1 release
Stories from 1 Epic can be linked to different releases
Initiatives and Epics can span multiple releases

28. Planning with
JIRA Portfolio

29. Organised backlog
Team Capacity Release Cadence

31. Capacity Utilisation
Booked Capacity
Free Capacity
Releases view

32. Initiatives and Epics views

33. Story view
Stories in a sprint: estimates, iteration length, team velocity

34. Planning Engine of JIRA Portfolio
Considers backlog items to be in priority order
Always tries to have work start as early as possible
Distributes work evenly and automatically across available capacity …
… unless otherwise determined by the user

37. Velocity evolution

38. Assigning the right teams
And getting an overview of work by Teams

39. Different teams, different schedules

40. Assigning Team Members
And getting an overview of work by Team member

41. Considering specialization
Using stages and skills

44. Dependencies
Can be set between issues at any level
Schedule work of the dependent issue after its parent
Are clearly indicated in the Initiative and epic views
Taken into account when recalculating

45. The big picture

49. Takeaways

50. Remember these?
Can you tell me exactly
when you will be releasing
to production?
Can someone
show me if all our
strategic projects are still
on track?
Sorry, but priorities
have changed. Can you
show me what that means
for our business
goals?

51. Know when you can
deliver

52. React to change

53. Stay focused on
the bigger picture

54. Keep everyone on
the same page

55. Portfolio Management for JIRA