Rally Office Hours:
October 9, 2025

Summary

Jason opens the session by discussing a personal anecdote about a morning bike ride where he encountered a "rogue squirrel" and ended up falling, which he lightheartedly illustrated with a "menacing squirrel" image generated by ChatGPT. He then welcomed attendees to Rally Office Hours, encouraging them to post questions in the chat early for discussion and noting that the session is being recorded. He also mentioned that recordings of past office hours are available on Broadcom Academy, and feedback can be submitted via the Rally help menu. He also reminded attendees to maintain professionalism and be mindful of sensitive content when sharing screens or examples. He stated that demo data could be used if sensitive content needed to be discussed.

Jason quoted Edward Deming, stating their purpose is to "learn, make a difference, and have fun."

The agenda for the session included a product announcement, a Q&A segment, and event news.

Product Announcements

• Team Health Widget on Team Board:

• Asia announced that a new "Team Health Widget" for the team board became generally available yesterday for all subscriptions with the AI module turned on.
• This widget provides an AI-generated summary of key flow metrics (throughput, velocity, work in progress, and cycle time) to highlight team problems and suggest actionable recommendations.
• Users need to click "analyze team health" to generate the summary, which then persists until refreshed.
• A question arose regarding regional control of AI features due to varying country restrictions. Asia explained that currently, it's an "all or nothing" situation at the subscription level, but they plan to give sub-admins more control in 2026.
• The widget is team-focused, with a train-level widget expected next quarter. Alexis expressed relief that the focus is on teams rather than individuals, which might alleviate some concerns, particularly in countries like Germany.
• Asia clarified that the current widget is for the selected project scope, but a future release train widget will depend on the hierarchy, with a demo planned in a couple of weeks.

• Drill-downs on Feature Charts:

• Christie announced the release of drill-downs on the "Feature Changes Over Time" and "Feature Implied State Over Time" charts.
• Clicking on a data point (representing a day) on these charts allows users to see features added or removed on that day, or features in their respective states on that day.
• A caveat was mentioned: deleted features in the recycle bin won't appear in the drill-down list but will be reflected in the chart's numbers.
• When asked about availability, Christie confirmed these drill-downs are currently only on sub-views and not on the capacity board or other widgets yet.

Q&A Session

• Filter by Tags on Release Tracking Page:

• Roslyn inquired about filtering by tags on the release tracking page. Cali stated that this page doesn't support tag filtering.
• Workarounds include using capacity planning or the regular portfolio items page for tag filtering. Another speaker added that the release tracking page filters by features assigned to a team for a timebox.
• Roslyn was encouraged to submit feedback for this feature.

• AI Capabilities Videos:

• Willis asked for videos on Rally's AI capabilities for management. Asia mentioned that Matt Gorski is working on videos, but none are ready yet.
• They offered to organize a demo and record it for Willis's company, and Asia provided her email for scheduling.
• It was also noted that Rally subscription admins must opt-in to AI capabilities by opening a support case. A link to documentation listing available AI features was shared.
• Asia also extended an invitation for volunteers to try early versions of new AI capabilities and provide feedback.

• Repeating Work at the Task Level / Cloning Issues:

• Christopher discussed challenges with repeating work, particularly at the task level. He noted that feature templates only go down to the story level, not including tasks.
• Copying individual user stories includes tasks but is a one-by-one process, and the bulk copy feature for stories is grayed out.
• Portfolio copy (for features, outcomes, or capabilities) often produces a "missing parent" error, and the program-level portfolio copy has a bug where it copies to the source feature rather than the target.
• Christie confirmed that improving "deep copy" functionality (to copy items multiple levels down) is in the backlog. She suggested using user story templates as a potential interim solution. The deep copy aims to replace some of the existing portfolio item and story copy apps. The inclusion of test cases in the deep copy MVP is still under consideration.

• Representing Capabilities Optionally:

• Alexis asked about representing "capabilities" (which are similar to features but require coordination across multiple trains) optionally in Rally, without a strict hierarchical parent-child relationship (Epic-Capability-Feature-Stories).
• He suggested using tags or custom fields to differentiate capability features and using dependencies instead of parent-child links.
• Cali and another speaker emphasized that the current hierarchical structure helps maintain data integrity. A custom field like "type" was suggested as a better alternative to tags for filtering. The idea of using dependencies was acknowledged, and it was noted that children of a capability often have an implied dependency.

• Acclimating New Rally Users:

• Brandy sought general guidance and resources for acclimating new Rally users, especially heavy users.
• Speakers pointed to the "getting started" section under the Rally help icon. John shared a link to the "Rally 101" video series, which offers short clips for new users.
• The Broadcom Learning Portal was also highly recommended for more in-depth learning, offering courses tailored for different roles (beginners, administrators, scrum teams) and covering conceptual aspects. It was mentioned that organizations can configure the learning portal to assign specific courses to roles.

• Tracking Progress Towards Epic Business Outcomes:

• Alexis asked for a good way to track progress towards aspirational business outcomes (scope items) for epics, particularly by tying individual features to them over time.
• Cali suggested OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), noting that any work item in Rally can be attached to an objective. Alexis acknowledged this but expressed concern about having too many OKRs if each of 15 outcomes became an objective.

• Best Way to Use OKRs:

• Brandy, piggybacking on Alexis's question, asked for guidance on implementing OKRs, especially at the strategic theme level and on the execution side. She also wondered if Rally itself uses OKRs.
• Cali explained that OKRs are found under the portfolio tab as "objectives." Workspace admins need to define these objective levels, which are not easily changed. An OKR includes an overview, key results (for measurement), and associated work items. Each objective level is associated with a level in the work hierarchy.
• Todd clarified that the Rally development team does not currently use the OKR functionality in Rally.
• Cali also plugged the learning portal's OKR course, which covers both practical Rally usage and conceptual aspects of writing good OKRs, emphasizing the importance of education before setup due to varying organizational understandings of OKRs.

• Cascading Portfolios and WIP Limits:

• Alexis inquired about Rally's ability to represent cascading portfolios (multiple layers of portfolios rolling up to higher organizational views). He was told that Rally supports up to 10 levels deep within a single workspace, and keeping everything in one workspace is best practice.
• He then asked if WIP limits could be configured by teams/release trains rather than by workspaces, as their release trains were inheriting the same whip limits from the workspace level for features.
• Christie and Asia clarified that while WIP limits are currently configured at the workspace level, they are actively working on allowing different projects (trains) to set up their own Kanban boards and flow states. This feature is in progress for flow states, with WIP limits to follow in the future. The ability to define flow states at an ART (Agile Release Train) level is coming, and lower levels will inherit from parent projects unless customized. This big change is expected to be available for use next PI, towards the end of this year or early next year.

Upcoming Event News

• Bridging the Gap: Product Opt Strategy and Execution: On October 16th, a Bright Talk session with Matt Gorski and Melissa Perry will discuss turning strategy into action.
• New Roadmap Session: A new roadmap session will be available on Bright Talk in early to mid-November after PI planning.
• SPM for AI On-Demand: A 10-minute on-demand session with Lance on "ConnectAll: SPM for AI and Why You Should Care" is available.
• UX Research on AI: Rally is conducting UX research on AI and encourages users to participate in a quick survey to provide input on shaping the future of AI within Rally.
• ValueOps Academy: The free ValueOps Academy offers a variety of courses, including Rally 101, planning with Rally, capacity planning, agile value stream management, and agile metric fundamentals.
• Rally Big Room Planning: The next Rally Big Room Planning event is from November 3rd to 6th in Broomfield, Colorado, offering an opportunity to provide input and observe the Rally team's feature development process. Quarterly events are planned.

Jason concluded the session by thanking attendees and encouraging them to join the Rally community, subscribe to the monthly newsletter, and attend future office hours.

Note: This summary was generated with the assistance of an artificial intelligence language model. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the summary may not be entirely error-free. We recommend independently verifying the content and consulting with a product expert for specific advice or information. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content.

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