How to: Tag items across different projects to show they are related to a common milestone in Agility

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Question

I would like to tag stories/backlog items and defects across different projects to show they are related to a common milestone. Then, I want to track progress/burndown similar to the Project progress/burn down metrics. How can I do this in Lifecycle?

Answer

Milestones are best represented in the Project Tree as sub-projects of a release. They can then be grouped as a program to cut across different products/projects as necessary. Here's a quick rundown of some options. Option 1 is the standard way to go.

Option 1: Project/Programs

A program can be defined to collect various milestone projects and roll them up into a single burndown. The structure would look something like this:

Organization
-- Project A
---- Release 1
------ Milestone x
------ Milestone y
------ Milestone z
---- Release 2
-- Project B
---- Release 1
------ Milestone x
------ Milestone y
------ Milestone z
---- Release 2

You could then set up the Milestone x program to contain each of the Milestone x projects and see a burndown, backlog, etc. for that program. Unfortunately, you cannot do the same thing with individually selected items.

Option 2: Portfolio Items

Portfolio Items are the only items outside of a project that can have begin/end dates and show a burndown. It sounds like you may already be using portfolio items from the prior comment, which would mean they could not be used for this purpose.

Option 3: Backlog Groups

Backlog Groups can cross projects and can be assigned to individual items, but they do not have a defined date. You can filter a burndown report by backlog group to see the trend of items, but there are no explicit target dates.

Option 4: Objectives/Backlog Goals

You can use an objective to define a collection of individual items and see a current progress status, but there are fewer reporting options than backlog groups.