Create and Edit a Program Increment

A Program Increment is a time-boxed period, often a quarter, in which to deliver a set of agreed features.

Users with ‘Manage Programs’ permission can create, edit and delete a new Increment from the Program Roadmap screen.

Creating a new increment

• Name your increment

• Select start date for your increment

• Choose the ‘sprint count’ - How many sprints are in your increment?

• Choose the ‘sprint length’ - How long are your sprints?

• Select the ‘Sprint source’

  • Team managed sprints - Do you want teams to manage their own sprints from their agile board in Jira?

  • Shared sprints - Do you want all of the teams in your Program Increment to share the same sprints?

To enable or disable date syncing on v5.3.0+, you will need to go to ‘Edit Program’. For users on v5.2.1 or below, date syncing is editable from the Create/edit increment dialog.

Editing an increment

To edit an increment, click the (…) menu on the Increment and select “Edit Increment”.

From here you can:

• Change the Increment Name - changing the name will automatically update the custom fields

• Change increment start date

• Change the length of sprints in your increment

• Add or remove sprints from your increment

• Remap sprints if you’re using ‘Shared sprints’

If you’d like more editing capabilities, please reach out to us with an explanation of your use case.

Deleting an increment

To delete an increment, click the (…) menu on the Increment and select “Delete Increment”. This action is not reversible.

FAQs

Does every sprint need to be the same length?

From v6.0.0, we have introduced custom sprint lengths custom sprint lengths to provide greater flexibility when planning - whether it’s for holiday periods, inspect and adapt events, or release periods.

With this release, teams will still be on the same cadence but will be able to plan their work more accurately in alignment with calendar timings and different sprint lengths.

Can I create overlapping Increments?

Currently it is not possible to create overlapping Increments as it would be difficult to view the Program Roadmap. If you’d like to be able to create overlapping Increments, please reach out to us with an explanation of your use case.

What does ‘sprint source’ mean? Which one is best for my release train?

There are two options available:

Shared sprints ‘Teams use shared sprints from a dedicated board’	Team managed sprints 'Teams independently manage their own sprints on their Team board'
All the teams in your Program Increment share the same sprints. Benefits of configuring a Program Increment to use shared/global sprints in Jira include: central sprint management ease of cross-team reporting	All of the teams in your Program Increment manage their own sprints from their agile board in Jira. Benefits of configuring a Program Increment to use team managed sprints in Jira include: autonomy of the teams to manage their own Sprints on their agile boards
From the Shared sprint board dropdown, select the Board where your shared sprints live/should be created on. If no sprints exist on the board selected, Easy Agile Programs will create them for you. If you have a specific naming convention we recommend you create your sprints before creating an Increment. Please note: We recommend that you don’t use the same ‘shared sprints’ across different Programs as our custom fields will not work as intended. When an issue is put in a sprint that’s associated with a Program we set the custom fields “Program” and “Program Increment” on the issue for visibility and reporting. When the same sprints are used across multiple Programs, the custom fields will be added for one Program/Program Increment only.	Once the increment is created, each team will need to map the sprints from their agile board in Jira to the increment. The first time you navigate to the Team Planning Board you will be required to map your sprints to the increment. We recommend doing this straight after creating the Increment, before anyone in the broader team starts planning so that the correct sprints are selected. If no sprints exist, Easy Agile Programs will create them for you. If you have a specific naming convention we recommend you create your sprints before creating an Increment.

What if I synced the wrong sprints?

Shared/Global Sprints

If you are using shared sprints, go to the Program Roadmap, click the menu on the Increment and select “Edit Increment”. You can change the sprints from here.

Team Managed Sprints

From version 4.2.0, you can change the sprints mapped to your increment from the Team Planning Board.

Simply click on the sprint name to open up the ‘Change your Sprint’ modal. You’ll be able to select another sprint as long as its not already used by the same Program. You can also select closed sprints.

To make theses changes you must have ‘Manage Sprints’ permission in your Jira instance.

For versions prior to 4.2.0, there is currently no simple way to remap sprints. The present workaround is to remove the board from the Program and add it again. This will trigger the “Sync your Jira sprints” page when you go to the Team Planning Board and you can reselect your sprints.

Please note: this will reset the sprint mapping for that board on every Increment in that Program and it will not be possible to select completed sprints for any previous Increments you may have.

Are sprint dates synced with Jira?

The dates shown in Easy Agile Programs are calculated based on the start date, sprint length and sprint count. These dates are currently not synced with Jira so it is possible to have conflicting dates between Easy Agile Programs and Jira.

Does every team in the Program have to follow the same cadence?

Following the guidance from Scaled Agile, our product has been designed for all teams in your Agile Release Train to have the same length sprints.

Why does Easy Agile Programs automatically create sprints?

When there are no active or future sprints, Easy Agile Programs will automatically create them for you.

For example, if your Program Increment is configured as X5 2 week Sprints, and Team A has no active or future existing Sprints on their board, Easy Agile Programs will create X5 new Sprints on Team A’s backlog.

Can I select a closed sprint?

You can select closed sprints on current versions of the app. This includes:

• Easy Agile Programs for Jira Cloud

• Easy Agile Programs for Jira Data Center v6.2.0+

Shared sprints

Team managed sprints

Closed sprints can be selected from the ‘Sync your Jira sprints’ screen when accessing the team planning board for the first time after creating a new increment.

It is also possible to select a closed sprint from the team planning board by clicking on the sprint name.

For Data Center/Server customers on v6.1.0 or earlier:

When first syncing your sprints, you will only be able to select active or future sprints from the ‘Sync your Jira sprints’ screen.

Workaround to select a closed sprint:

• Create a placeholder sprint in your Jira backlog

• Sync this placeholder sprint

• Navigate to the Team Planning Board and click on the sprint name to open the ‘Change your sprint’ modal

• Search for the closed sprint in the dropdown and select

When using team managed sprints, how do I select a sprint that was created on a different board?

When first syncing your sprints, you will only be able to select active sprints that were originally created on your agile board.

To select a sprint created on another board, start by assigning team issues to that sprint so that the sprint appears on your Jira backlog.

Once the sprint is on your backlog, you will be able to select it from the ‘Change your sprint’ modal on the Team Planning Board if it is not already being used by another team in the Program.