Program cycle

Agile organizations value individuals and interactions over processes and tools. They prefer responding to change over following a plan. [agile manifesto]

So instead of planning the full program ahead in details, we plan a program in cycles of different periods (called “Program Increments” in SAFe® ).

We’ll use lean visualization techniques to promote human interaction and to keep the plan thin and on point.

The main steps of the cycle are visualized in Ativo Agile Programs for Jira:

Example of a program cycle visualization in Ativo Agile Program for Jira.

Select or create a program

When you open the application for the first time, you are invited to select an existing program or create a new program.

A program is created by an Ativo Agile Programs for Jira Admin. Refer to the security configuration documentation for more information on how to appoint an administrator. Refer to the team configuration and program configuration documentation for more information on the configuration of teams and programs.

Select or create a period

Once you’ve created the teams and selected a program, you are invited to select a period or create a new period. A period contains a set of sprints.

A period is created by an Ativo Agile Programs for Jira Admin. Refer to the period configuration documentation for more information on the creation of a period.

Prepare and prioritize

Each program has a prioritized backlog of features. The business (Product Manager) defines the priority and selects a shortlist of features for the next period.

A feature is in Jira represented as an epic. The feature list is saved in a Jira project.

Plan and improve

As a next step, teams plan in the features and stories in the sprints of the period. Each feature is owned by a team ‘in the lead’. This ‘team in the lead’ coordinates the planning of the stories with other teams.

When a team has a story as part of a feature of another team, this story is a cross-team dependency between both teams.

More information:

• Plan stories

• Plan features

• Plan cross-team dependencies

• Plan issues and risks

Deliver and learn

Teams are responsible for the delivery of the stories and features. The progress is reviewed in the Sprint review and Scrum of scrum / art-sync meetings.

Ativo Agile Programs for Jira provides dashboards to show the issues, risks, dependencies, progress and metrics per team and per program.

More information:

• Team progress

• Program progress