Plan types
Choose from the following plan types based on your team’s development style.
Release plan
A Release plan is the highest-level plan in IBM® Engineering Workflow Management that provides a brief overview of the project goals. A Release plan displays top-level work items, such as Stories and Epics associated to a project area or team area, child team areas, current iteration, and its child iterations.
Although, you can create a Release plan for any iteration, it is advisable to create a Release plan for the top iteration.
In the Formal Project Management process template, a plan groups
work items based on the following plan views by default:
- Schedule Variance: Displays and colorize work items based on the expression. The Proposed and Planned start and end dates are populated from the dates in the Proposed and Planned snapshots.
- Traceability: Displays Engineering Lifecycle
Management
traceability columns for Test By and Affected By. Note: This view is only visible when a project area association exists with Engineering Requirements Management DOORS® Next or Engineering Test Management.
- Work Breakdown: Displays work items based on owner.
- Work Breakdown and Schedule: Displays work items and the Gantt chart based on phases. You can use the Gantt chart to view the progress of a plan, dependencies between work items, and viewing critical path. You can also use the Gantt chart to change the schedule and priority of work items.
Note: If you follow the Scrum process template, a Release plan
is called a Release Backlog.
In the Scrum process template, a Release Backlog groups work items
based on the following plan views by default:
- Ranked List: Displays work items based on rank.
- Work Breakdown: Displays work items grouped by owner and in a tree structure by using the parent/child relationship.
Example: Managing a Release Backlog
A Release Backlog is managed using the Plan editor. The Plan editor assists you with stack ranking your backlog items by using drag and drop or specific keyboard actions. In the View As section, select Work Breakdown to customize the Plan editor view to display the backlog items.
Phase plan
Engineering Workflow Management projects are organized into a series of fixed-length development periods called iterations. Each timeline has its own set of iterations. An Phase plan displays the goals to be achieved in an iteration. You can create a phase plan and assign work items that are to be completed in an iteration.
In the Formal Project Management process template, a plan groups
work items based on the following plan views by default:
- Schedule Variance: Displays and colorize work items based on the expression. The Proposed and Planned start and end dates are populated from the dates in the Proposed and Planned snapshots.
- Traceability: Displays Engineering Lifecycle
Management
traceability columns for Test By and Affected By. Note: This view is only visible when a project area association exists withEngineering Requirements Management DOORS Next or IBM Engineering Test Management.
- Work Breakdown: Displays work items based on owner.
- Work Breakdown and Schedule: Displays work items and the Gantt chart based on phases. You can use the Gantt chart to view the progress of a plan, dependencies between work items, and viewing critical path. You can also use the Gantt chart to change the schedule and priority of work items.
Note: If you follow the Scrum process template, a Phase plan is
called a Sprint Backlog.
In the Scrum process template, a Sprint Backlog groups work items
based on the following plan views by default:
- Planned Time: Displays work items based on a timeline such as past, today, tomorrow, and so on and groups them by owner.
- Ranked List: Displays work items based on rank.
- Roadmap: Displays work items sorted by rank. The Accumulated Time column displays the duration bar for each work item indicating the duration taken to resolve the work item. You can see the Block and Depends on relationship of work items. You can drag the right end of the duration bar to change the estimate of the work item. Rescheduling changes the work sequence as defined in the My Work view.
- Taskboard: Displays work items sorted by status.
- Traceability: Displays Engineering Lifecycle
Management
traceability columns for Test By and Affected By. Note: This view is only visible when a project area association exists withEngineering Requirements Management DOORS Next or Engineering Test Management.
- Work Breakdown: Displays work items grouped by owner and in a tree structure by using the parent/child relationship.
Example: Planning a Sprint
You can use the Plan editor to manage Sprint Backlogs. As with a Release Backlog, the editor assists you with stack ranking your Sprint Backlog. In addition, the Plan editor provides a view to display the work breakdown structure of all work items, grouped by the owners. Drag and drop or specific keyboard actions are used to manipulate the work breakdown structure or reassigning the task to do load balancing. Key work item attributes, like the estimate of a task, can be changed in place and the changes are immediately reflected in the corresponding progress and load bars.
In the View As drop-down list, select Taskboard. Top-level plan items, such as stories, display in the left column. To mark a work item as complete, drag it from the Open or In Progress columns to the Resolved column. You can define more states in the process template.
Cross Project plan
A Cross Project plan can include items that track items in other projects. It displays all items that belong to it (matching the plan query) and the items that are tracked by them. You can also use Cross Project plans to view work item relationships as a Kanban board.
Important: The Cross Project plan is used for tracking
purposes only. Because project areas have different processes, iterations,
timelines, etc., the progress bars in the plan details section do
not reflect the rolled up schedule of the tracked work items.
By default, a Cross Project plan groups work items based on the following plan view:
- Project Schedule: Displays the scheduling relationships among work items across projects.