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How to create tickets

A ticket (or card) organizes and tracks our work. Creating tickets may also be best learned during a project (on a project-by-project basis).

Epic

An epic often starts as the big picture and then the user stories fill in the details. A single epic can contain two or more tickets.

As they are prioritized, a group of user stories also can form an epic.

Who creates tickets or cards

  • Product Owners
  • Product Manager
  • Project Managers
  • Scrum Masters
  • Engineers
  • UX/Design Team

User story

  • Most tickets should contain a user story
  • The structure of a user story is: As a(n) X I want to Y so that Z (outcome)
  • Describes the user need for the work to be done
  • Example: As an anonymous user, I want to see the latest news articles on the homepage so that I do not have to view older articles that I may have already read.
  • Avoid more than one action per user story. Red flags would be commas and "ands". Consider splitting actions into multiple tickets.

Implementation plan

  • The plan has notes that explain how and where to start
  • Helps if another engineer has to pick up your ticket
  • Often these plans/notes are in the comments field on a Jira ticket

User Acceptance Tests (UAT)

  • Explains how we validate that this ticket or card works
  • Written in a language anyone can understand
  • Explains what the ticket will not do as well
  • Acceptance Testing is the process that verifies if the installed piece of code or software works as designed for the user
  • Ideally the Product Owner (PO) writes the Acceptance Test for a piece of work
  • Testing with users is an important factor in ensuring the work is performing/created as expected

QA tests

  • Written step-by-step so that anyone can pass/fail the test
  • The PO will also run through the same test
  • It will also explain the expected results
  • Contains specific directions or steps a tester can follow that ensure what was developed produces what the engineer intended

Estimates

  • Every ticket must be estimable
  • Estimate tickets at the beginning of a sprint
  • Co-working encouraged!
  • Track your time daily
  • Estimates should consider time for QA (on average +20%)
  • Projects use story points for estimating
This page was last updated on November 3, 2023.