These days most of the projects are following an “Agile� ? process for software development.� ? In the case of� ?scrum� ?there will be multiple� ?sprint� ?and team needs to plan quickly for each sprint. The days are gone where we plan upfront identifying all WBS in a project and that too using a sophisticated project management tool.� ? The reality is in a fast changing world such planning is not sustainable.

The success of “Agile� ? methodologies and its wider acceptance leads to the birth of new project management tools.� ? The advancement of web and cloud computing technologies resulted in the feasibility of web based project management solutions. � ?Redmine� ?(http://www.redmine.org/) � ?is an Open source project management web application.

Redmine� ?is written using� ?Ruby on Rails� ?framework and it is extensible with the help of plugins.� ? As the title of this article, the approach here is to use Redmine without any third party plugins.� ? I believe though the solution I am recommending is not perfect, it does the job for many small projects.

Ok then, let us get Dirty!!!

Release Sun Shine

Let us consider a release planned for a Project �” “Release Sun Shine� ?.� ? Here are some of the key dates of this release.

Release Sun Shine Duration:� ? Feb 01, 2014 to Mar 31, 2014

Sprint One Development: � ?Feb 01, 2014 to Feb 14, 2014

Sprint One QA: Feb 17, 2014 to Feb 21, 2014

Sprint Two Development: Feb 24, 2014 to Mar 14, 2014

Sprint Two QA :� ? Mar 24, 2014 to Mar 28, 2014

UAT :� ? Mar 24, 2014 to Mar 28, 2014

Fig: Timeline representation of the high level release plan

Steps to setup this release in Redmine

Admin Task

1. Create a new project in Redmine �” e.g.:� ? “Agile Scrum Test Project� ?
2. Create two trackers -� ?� ?Release� ?and� ?Sprint
3. Add users to the project with correct roles �”� ?Manager,� ?Developer.� ?This article is not covering about roles.

Manager (Team Leader / Scrum Master) Task

1. Create a Release ticket �”“Release Sun Shine� ?.
2. Create a Sprint ticket �”� ?Sprint One Development� ?and make it as a sub task of release ticket
3. Create a Task ticket �”� ?Sprint One QA� ?as a sub task of “Sprint One Development� ?
4. Create a Sprint ticket �”� ?Sprint Two Development� ?ticket and make it as a sub task of release ticket.
5. Create a Task ticket �”� ?Sprint Two QA� ?as a sub task of “Sprint Two Development� ?
6. Create� ? a task Ticket �”UAT� ? and add it as a sub task of “Release Sun Shine� ?� ? ticket

The above tickets are created in a hierarchical fashion which can be represented diagrammatically as follows

Sprint Planning Activity

During this process� ?Feature� ?tickets for the release can be added to the� ?Sprint One Development� ?and� ?Sprint Two Development� ? as related tickets (NOT sub tasks). These tickets are often taken from the� ?Product Backlog, prioritized by business for the release. The team can start with identifying � ?Sprint One Development� ?tickets and later during� ?Sprint One QA, they can plan tickets for the� ?Sprint Two Development.

Redmine Representation of the release

Related tickets in each Docket

These are just� ?recommendations� ?that you can customize.

• The� ?Sprint One Development� ?and� ?Sprint Two Development� ?will contain� ?Feature� ?and� ?Bug� ?(existing production bugs from previous releases)
• The� ?Sprint One QA� ?and� ?Sprint Two QA� ?will contain� ?Bug QA� ?tickets. These are tickets created by QA team during the testing cycle.
• UAT� ?ticket will contain� ?BUG UAT� ?tickets. These are tickets created during the UAT phase

All these tickets MUST ideally be� ?related tickets� ?with� ?blocking� ?status as mentioned below.

Conclusion

The attempt here is how we can use Redmine for Scrum project with no additional changes.� ? I find it very simple and easy to use. This is just an alternative suggestion who don’t have access to so called sophisticated PMS.