How to Create a New Sprint in Jira: 7 Steps for Agile Teams
Ready to create new sprint in Jira without misplacing issues? Follow 7 steps to plan confidently, set clear goals, and track progress. Read now!
A sprint can look simple in Jira: choose a board, set dates, and start working. Yet one wrong setting can place issues in the wrong sprint, confuse reporting, or leave your team unsure about the next goal. That frustration grows when unfinished work is carried forward without a clear decision.
But here's the truth: creating a sprint takes only a few minutes when your board, backlog, permissions, and sprint goals are ready. The real skill is setting up the sprint so your team can plan confidently and track progress accurately.
This guide walks you through seven practical steps to create a new sprint in Jira. You’ll also learn how to handle permissions, write a useful sprint goal, avoid common planning mistakes, and keep your workflow clear after the sprint begins.
How to Create a New Sprint in Jira
To create a new sprint in Jira, open a Scrum board, go to the Backlog, select Create sprint, add planned work, set the dates, and start the sprint when planning is complete.
Jira usually lets you create a sprint before deciding its exact schedule. That makes it useful for preparing the next iteration while the current sprint is still active.
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Open the correct Scrum board
Sign in to Jira and open the Scrum board connected to the project you want to plan.
From the main navigation, choose Boards, then select the relevant board. If you manage several projects, check the board name carefully before changing anything.
Here's why: a sprint belongs to a board configuration. Choosing the wrong board can show the wrong backlog, filters, and team issues.
For example, a mobile team might have separate boards for iOS, Android, and shared platform work. Select the board that owns the upcoming sprint.
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Go to the Backlog view
Open the board sidebar and select Backlog. This view normally shows the active sprint near the top and the product backlog underneath.
If you cannot see the Backlog option, check whether the board uses a Scrum template. Kanban boards usually do not use sprints in the same way.
You should also confirm that your account has permission to plan work. Jira administrators can control who may create and manage sprints.
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Select Create sprint
In the Backlog view, select Create sprint. Jira adds a new sprint section, often near the active sprint or above the backlog.
The new sprint may initially have a generic name, such as Sprint 3. You can rename it later if your team uses a naming convention.
A clear name helps when several sprints appear in reports. For instance, Checkout reliability or April 8 mobile iteration gives more context than a number alone.
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Move planned issues into the sprint
Drag issues from the backlog into the new sprint. You can also use an issue’s action menu to move it into a selected sprint.
Review each issue before adding it. Check that the description is understandable, acceptance criteria are present, and the work fits the team’s capacity.
Keep the sprint focused. If your team can complete about 30 story points, planning 70 points creates pressure before work begins.
For example, a team with two developers, one tester, and ten working days may reserve capacity for support requests, reviews, and technical maintenance.
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Set the sprint goal and schedule
Open the sprint details and add a concise goal. A useful goal describes the customer or product outcome the team wants to achieve.
Compare these two examples:
The second goal gives the team a decision-making filter. When new work appears, you can ask whether it supports the outcome.
Set the start date and end date according to your team’s agreed cadence. Most teams use one- or two-week sprints, but the right length depends on release frequency and work complexity.
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Review scope, dependencies, and capacity
Before starting the sprint, review the planned issues as a group. Confirm that each issue has an owner, a priority, and any important dependency.
Look for work that depends on another team, an approval, a design decision, or an environment change. A small dependency can delay several issues.
Use Jira estimates, issue links, and priorities to support the conversation. These details do not replace planning judgment, but they make risks easier to see.
Let me explain: a sprint is a team commitment, so the visible scope should reflect realistic availability rather than an ideal week with no interruptions.
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Start the sprint
When the team agrees on the goal and scope, select Start sprint. Jira may ask you to confirm the sprint name, dates, and starting configuration.
Check the final summary before confirming. Starting the sprint moves its issues into the active workflow and changes how boards, reports, and burndown charts display progress.
After launch, open the active board and confirm that the intended issues appear in the correct columns. Ask the team to verify the sprint goal during the kickoff meeting.
The best part? You can still adjust the sprint when reality changes. Add or remove work carefully, explain the reason, and preserve a visible record of the decision.
What to Prepare Before Sprint Planning
Good sprint creation begins before you press the button. A prepared backlog helps your team spend planning time on decisions instead of clarification.
Refine the highest-priority issues
Start with the items most likely to enter the next sprint. Confirm the problem, expected outcome, acceptance criteria, and estimate.
An issue such as “Improve search” needs more detail. A stronger version might say, “Show relevant results when customers search by product name or order number.”
Check team capacity
Count holidays, planned leave, training, support rotations, and other commitments. A team with five people may have the capacity of four during a release week.
You can compare recent completed work with upcoming availability. For example, if the team usually completes 24 to 28 points, planning 26 points may be reasonable when capacity is normal.
Clarify dependencies
Mark work that depends on another team or an external decision. Then decide whether to plan it, split it, or wait for more certainty.
You might be wondering: should every issue be perfectly refined? No. The goal is enough clarity for a confident commitment, not endless preparation.
How Sprint Settings Affect Jira Reporting
Starting a sprint changes more than the board view. Jira uses sprint boundaries to calculate several planning and progress reports.
Burndown charts compare remaining work with time left. If your team adds a large issue halfway through the sprint, the chart may show scope growth alongside remaining work.
Velocity reports compare completed estimates across past sprints. Moving unfinished issues or changing estimates can affect how your team interprets that trend.
Here's why: reports are useful only when the team understands the decisions behind the numbers. A sudden increase in scope may explain a slower burndown without indicating slower delivery.
| Jira element |
What to review |
| Sprint dates |
Confirm the period matches the team’s working cadence. |
| Planned issues |
Check that the scope supports the sprint goal. |
| Estimates |
Use a consistent estimation approach across the team. |
| Issue status |
Make sure workflow columns reflect actual progress. |
| Added work |
Explain why new issues entered after the sprint started. |
How to Write a Strong Sprint Goal
A sprint goal should describe the result your team wants to create, validate, or release. It gives individual tasks a shared purpose.
Try this simple pattern:
Help a specific audience achieve a meaningful outcome by completing a focused area of work.
For example, “Help returning customers update payment details without contacting support” is clearer than “Finish payment tickets.”
Keep the goal visible
Add the goal to the sprint details and mention it during daily discussions. When someone proposes new work, compare it with the goal.
Connect issues to the outcome
Every planned issue should support the goal directly or protect delivery. If an issue has no clear connection, move it back to the backlog or explain its importance.
Use the goal during the review
At the sprint review, assess the outcome rather than counting tickets alone. A team may complete fewer issues while delivering the most important customer improvement.
For example, releasing one reliable checkout change can matter more than closing six low-impact maintenance tasks.
Common Sprint Planning Mistakes
Most sprint problems come from unclear scope, weak capacity planning, or poor communication. You can prevent many of them with a short review before launch.
Overloading the sprint
Teams often fill every available slot and ignore meetings, support work, testing, and unexpected defects. The result is unfinished work and a misleading sense of failure.
Leave reasonable capacity for normal interruptions. If your team regularly handles urgent requests, plan that responsibility explicitly.
Starting with unclear issues
Vague issues slow the team during execution. Add acceptance criteria, examples, screenshots, or technical notes where they help the team make decisions.
A short refinement conversation is usually cheaper than discovering missing requirements halfway through the sprint.
Changing scope silently
Scope changes happen. Problems appear when nobody explains them.
If you add an urgent issue, identify what changed and whether another issue should leave the sprint. This keeps the team’s commitment understandable.
Using estimates as promises
Estimates support planning, but they do not guarantee delivery. A complex issue can uncover more work than expected.
Discuss the reason for variation during the retrospective. Improve estimation and refinement rather than pressuring people to hide uncertainty.
Natural Sprint Planning Solution: ONES.com
Value Proposition
ONES.com brings project management and knowledge management into one platform, with ONES Project supporting Jira-compatible workflows. It can help teams plan iterations, manage dependencies, and keep delivery context accessible in one workspace.
ONES Project is sold separately and works as a Jira alternative for teams that need custom workflows, reporting, sprint management, automation, or on-premise deployment.
Core Capabilities
Planning scattered across multiple workspaces
ONES capability: ONES Project provides a central workspace for backlog planning, sprint setup, issue ownership, priorities, and progress tracking.
Result: Your team can prepare the next iteration without switching between disconnected planning areas.
Rigid workflow requirements
ONES capability: Custom workflows and fields let you reflect stages such as refinement, ready for development, testing, approval, and release.
Result: The board shows how your team actually works instead of forcing every project into one process.
Limited visibility into sprint progress
ONES capability: Built-in reporting supports sprint tracking, progress review, and delivery analysis.
Result: You can identify scope changes, bottlenecks, and unfinished work during the iteration.
Repeated manual coordination
ONES capability: Automation can trigger actions when issues change status, receive updates, or meet defined conditions.
Result: Routine handoffs require less manual follow-up, leaving more time for planning and problem-solving.
Complex sprint execution
ONES capability: Sprint management supports organizing planned work, setting goals, monitoring progress, and reviewing outcomes.
Result: The team can connect daily execution with the objective established during planning.
Heavy reliance on add-ons
ONES capability: ONES Project includes native workflow, field, sprint, automation, and reporting features.
Result: Teams may reduce the number of plugins needed for common project management tasks.
Deployment restrictions
ONES capability: ONES.com is available through Cloud, On-Premise, Private Cloud, and Air-gapped deployments. The self-hosted version provides feature parity with the cloud version.
Result: Organizations with network or hosting requirements can choose a deployment model that fits their operating environment.
Project knowledge separated from delivery work
ONES capability: ONES Wiki provides knowledge management alongside ONES Project. It serves as a Confluence alternative for teams that want planning context and team knowledge connected.
Result: Sprint goals, working agreements, release notes, and process guidance can remain easier to find.
Application Scenarios
Software product team: A team can use ONES Project to refine backlog items, create a sprint, assign owners, and track testing status. Automation can notify the next role when an issue reaches review.
Regulated organization: An organization with restricted network requirements can use an air-gapped deployment while retaining sprint management, reporting, and workflow capabilities.
Growing delivery group: A team can connect ONES Project with ONES Wiki so sprint goals, release decisions, and engineering practices remain near day-to-day work.
Common Challenges When Starting a Jira Sprint
You cannot see the Create sprint option
Problem: The board may be a Kanban board, or your account may lack the permission to manage sprints.
Solution: Confirm that you opened a Scrum board and ask a Jira administrator to review project and board permissions.
The wrong issues appear in the backlog
Problem: Board filters may exclude issues, include another project, or use criteria your team does not expect.
Solution: Ask the board administrator to review the saved filter and its permission settings. Compare the visible backlog with the project’s issue search.
The team cannot agree on sprint scope
Problem: The planned work may be too large, poorly refined, or disconnected from a shared outcome.
Solution: Write the sprint goal first, then select the smallest set of issues that supports it. Split large issues when possible.
Unfinished work keeps rolling forward
Problem: Carrying every incomplete issue into the next sprint can hide the reason work was missed.
Solution: Review each issue individually. Move it only when it remains valuable, update its estimate when appropriate, and discuss the cause during the retrospective.
Reports do not match team expectations
Problem: Late scope changes, inconsistent estimates, or status updates can make charts difficult to interpret.
Solution: Agree on estimation rules, update issue statuses consistently, and explain scope changes during the sprint review.
FAQs About Creating a Sprint in Jira
Can I create a sprint before the current sprint ends?
Yes. In a Scrum board, you can usually create and prepare the next sprint while another sprint remains active. This lets your team refine scope early. You may add issues, set a goal, and review capacity before starting it. Avoid starting the new sprint until the team is ready, because Jira treats it as active once you confirm the start action.
Why can’t I start a sprint in Jira?
The most common reasons are missing sprint permissions, an incorrect board type, or another active sprint already running on the board. Check whether you are using a Scrum board and whether your account can manage sprints. Also review the board’s sprint configuration. A Jira administrator can confirm the exact permission or configuration issue.
Can I change the sprint dates after starting it?
Usually, you can edit sprint details after the sprint begins, including its dates. However, changing dates can affect reports and how the team interprets progress. Use the actual working period whenever possible. If the schedule changes because of an event, record the reason and explain it during the review.
What should I do with unfinished issues?
Review each unfinished issue during sprint closing. Move it to the next sprint only if it remains a priority and fits the next goal. You may also return it to the backlog, split it, or close it if the requirement changed. Avoid moving every issue automatically, because that can make planning problems harder to see.
How many issues should a sprint contain?
There is no universal issue count. A sprint might contain ten large issues or forty small ones. Focus on total effort, team capacity, dependencies, and the sprint goal. For example, five complex integrations may require more time than twenty small interface changes. Use past delivery patterns as a planning guide, then adjust for availability and risk.
Conclusion
Creating a new sprint in Jira is straightforward: open the right Scrum board, go to the Backlog, create the sprint, move in suitable issues, set the goal and dates, review capacity, and start it.
The quality of the sprint depends on the decisions around those clicks. Refine high-priority work, account for real availability, clarify dependencies, and keep the goal focused on an outcome.
But here's the truth: a sprint does not solve unclear priorities by itself. When your team connects scope, capacity, workflow, and review habits, Jira becomes far more useful for planning and delivery.
If your current setup feels fragmented, a platform such as ONES.com can bring sprint management, customizable workflows, reporting, automation, and knowledge management into a more connected working environment.