I start planning for the following year in the last two weeks of December. I use Azure DevOps to track my work -break down goals into features, and features into user stories, which I map into sprints. Creating iterations and adding them to projects is something that anyone can automate.
UPDATE:
In Dec-2022, I automated the script using Azure DevOps pipeline. If you are interested, navigate to using Azure DevOps build pipeline.
It is necessary to have an Azure DevOps organization, a project to host the iterations, and admin credentials of the project to generate PAT.
Step 1: Install Azure DevOps CLI on your local system/laptop.
Step 2: Create Azure DevOps PAT in your Azure DevOps organization.
Step 3: Identify the start date, number of days in each iteration, and number of iterations to create and add to the team.
Note: I start my sprints on Saturday and they are for 2 weeks long. I create sprints for the full year (hence 26 sprints) starting from the first Saturday of January. Therefore in 2023 the first day of the first sprint is 7th January 2023.
Step 4: Run the script from your local
createIterations.ps1 -Organization "$(Organization)" -PAT "$(PAT)" -Project "$(Project)" -TeamName "$(TeamName)" -YearOfIteration "$(YearOfIteration)" -MonthOfIteration "$(MonthOfIteration)" -StartDateOfIteration "$(StartDateOfIteration)" -NumberOfSprints "$(NumberOfSprints)"
To ceate 26 sprints starting on 7th of January 2023 the argument list would look like below:
createIterations.ps1 -Organization "$(Organization)" -PAT "$(PAT)" -Project "$(Project)" -TeamName "$(TeamName)" -YearOfIteration "2023" -MonthOfIteration "1" -StartDateOfIteration "7" -NumberOfSprints "26"
where $(Organization)="https://dev.azure.com/$(your-organization-name)/"
$(Project)="$(your-project-name)" $(TeamName) = "$(your-team-name)" and I have already listed the step to create the PAT above.
Step 5: Review iterations and revoke PAT
I have supporting documentation of the legacy process (running the PowerShell script from your local) on my note at: create-azure-devops-iterations-using-powershell
It is necessary to have an Azure DevOps organization, a project to host the iterations, and admin credentials of the project to generate PAT.
Step 1: Create Azure DevOps PAT
Step 2: Create a variable group to store the required variables
Step 3: Create a pipeline in Azure DevOps
Step 4: Run the pipeline in Azure DevOps
Step 5: Review iterations and revoke PAT
I have supporting documentation on my note at: automate-azure-boards-iteration-using-powershell-and-azure-pipelines