Whether you’re trying to release a feature in time for a
market event, or simply wondering what got
fixed in the last software deployment, Rally’s Milestone feature will help
you pull together all the information you need to manage your delivery.
A Milestone is like a Tag, but with an associated date.
As with Tags, you can associate one Milestone with multiple Work Items,
and you can associate a Work Item with multiple Milestones.
You can use Milestones with Portfolio Items, User Stories, Defects,
Tasks, Test Cases, and Test Sets.
You can also associate a Milestone with
work items in one or more Projects, but you
must call out these Projects explicitly in the Milestone administration.
Once you do, you may only associate Milestones with Work Items
in the Projects you’ve specified.
To create a Milestone, you must have Project-level permissions or better.
Navigate to Plan, then select Timeboxes. From here, choose
Milestones from the dropdown options and then select +Add New.
Enter a Name and a Target Date, then select
Create with Details.
Add a Description. You may also add any Notes you want to record.
Select a color if you are using a color scheme for your Milestones.
For example, I like to create orange Milestones to indicate future
deployments, and then change the color to green once the deployment has been
released to production.
Choose one or more Projects that will share this Milestone.
Select the checkbox to choose all Projects in the
Workspace, or select specific Projects by opening the Project Hierarchy
and choosing them one by one.
If you hold down the shift key and
select a parent Project you can simultaneously select or deselect all
Projects in that branch of the hierarchy.
Finally, select "Create" to save your MIlestone, "Create + New" to save your
Milestone and create another one,
or Discard to cancel and discard changes.
Once your Milestone is
created, you may associate it with other Work Items.
Let’s choose the stories and defects that will be deployed.
Go to the Iteration Status page and select the items for a future deployment.
In this case we’re going to deploy some bug fixes
and small enhancements that are ready to go out now.
We will release more of our iteration work in future deployments.
Choose the artifacts to deply
select the Edit icon, then choose the Milestones field from the dropdown
menu. Then select the deployment Milestone for these Work Items.
These Work Items may also be associated with additional Milestones
and we can set these now as well.
For this example, I’m just focused on the deployment Milestone.
If I had test cases, I might also associate them with this deployment.
Once the deployment goes live, it’s helpful to push a message with a link to the artifacts
contained in the deployment Milestone.
This is really helpful for support folks or other stakeholders
who are waiting for specific fixes or improvements.
Next, let’s look at using Milestones to track
stages of Feature delivery.
Milestones are very useful for indicating the work that will
be needed to vet a Minimal Viable Product (also
known as an MVP), or to get the GA version of the Features over the line.
In these examples, it’s easier to associate
Portfolio Items with the Milestone.
When you associate a Feature, for example, with a Milestone,
then all its children inherit the Milestone for
reporting progress with charts (although in this case, the Milestone does not
show on individual Work Items in the Feature).
Here, I'll associate the work needed for this MVP release,
and then associate the work needed for the GA release.
You can see there is some overlap when you consider
fundamental work that needs to get done in either case.
The feedback we receive from the MVP release will help us know
which additional functionality or changes we may want to offer in the GA release.
As a small group of customers use our MVP releases
we can tag features with the GA Milestone as they become more loved and refined.
When viewing the Portfolio Items we will release as part of the MVP,
we can expand these features
to see details of the work involved without having to associate every User Story
and Defect individually with the MVP Milestone.
Now that we know which work we need to deliver for the MVP,
how do we know if we’ll be able to deliver it in time for the launch date?
Select the Charts icon or the detail page for
Milestone to track its progress and see details
of how the work is coming along.
The Burnup chart shows the progress of accepted User Stories
and Defects as time approaches the Milestone date.
You can measure progress in the Plan Estimate values (or
Points) for the associated Defects and User Stories, in the Counts
for those Work Items, or both Points and Counts.
The blue lines indicate the scope and the green bars are the accepted work on a given date.
The Cumulative Flow Chart shows the flow of work in a Milestone.
This is helpful for both Scrum or Kanban
teams who are looking for bottlenecks in their delivery process.
Progress is depicted in Points or Work Item Counts for the flow field you want to measure.
Examples of flow fields are Kanban State
or Schedule State or other stages of progress you track.
In this example, I’m tracking the progress of work using the Schedule State
and I’m choosing to show all the Schedule States I use.
If you have associated the Milestone with Portfolio Items, the charts
include all the User Stories and Defects for the Portfolio Item.
Only Leaf Stories - those with no children - and Defects, are included in the
measurements for Points and Counts.
Roll-up measurements for Portfolio items and Epic User Stories are not counted again.
You can also add one or both of these charts to
your Dashboard by selecting the gear icon to Add an App,
and then searching for “Milestone”. When you add a Milestone Chart to your Dashboard,
you’ll only be able to track one Milestone at a time, but
you can add multiple charts to your Dashboards.
There may be times when you want to look at a Milestone
on a timeline in context with your scheduled Portfolio Items
To do this, check your Project scope to
include the Project data you want to view, and navigate to Portfolio > Portfolio Timeline.
Choose the Portfolio Item type you want to see on the timeline,
then click the checkbox for Show Workspace Scoped Milestones.
You will see the Milestones super-imposed on the timeline.
You can click a Milestone icon to
see the Milestones that are active for that date. Click the one you are interested
in to call it out from the others on the page when you’re having conversations about it.
As with other fields, you may show
Milestones on your board and list views.
Navigate to a view to
select and Show Fields. Search for Milestones, then choose it and select Apply.
Now you have additional context for your favorite views.
You may edit Milestones in the same
way you edit other Work Items.
Select the Milestone ID to view the Milestone in the detail editor.
If you remove Projects associated with a Milestone,
any associated Work Items from those Projects will also be removed,
therefore, you’ll be prompted to confirm these Project changes.
You may delete a Milestone if you have at least project editor permissions for all Projects
associated with that Milestone.
Deleting a Milestone will remove the association it has with Work Items,
but the Work Items themselves are not deleted.
To delete a Milestone,
navigate to the detail editor and select Delete from the Actions menu.
If you’ve deleted a Milestone by mistake you can restore it from the Recycle bin,
but you’ll need to associate it to your Work Items once again after it’s restored.
Congratulations - now you know how to use
Milestones to associate your work with an event and track its progress.
Try creating a Milestone for your next trade show, beta release, or
deployment and identify the associated work.
Then track your progress against the Milestone date.
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