Tracking external vendor dependencies on Stories/Epics - how do you handle it?

[Micaela Alberti]

We're trying to figure out the best way to track external vendor dependencies that block our Stories or Epics in the scrum board.

A few approaches we've been considering:

• Marking the Story as Blocked with vendor ticket info in the description
• Creating additional "proxy" Stories assigned to a dummy vendor group
• Something else entirely?

Our key requirements:

• Vendor ticket reference visible to internal SN employees (vendor uses external tool)
• Traceable to a sprint and/or scrum release for planning purposes
• Filterable from list view so we can quickly see all vendor-blocked items at a glance
• Minimal copy-paste overhead between systems

Curious how others have solved this - we can't be the only team dealing with external vendors that block internal work. What's worked for you?

[Mark Manders]

Block the story (impediment) and create a task under it for tracking the suppliers work. Integrating with the supplier's tool limits the need for copy/pasting.

[Micaela Alberti]

Thanks Mark for the idea! I like it and will investigate further. At the same time I cannot apply a filter on my list of stories to understand which ones are blocked by vendor.