Why is Team Spend per Point for KanBan team not calculating?

[Stephen.Miller]

Portfolio in Jira Align (Build: 10.132.3.44303) has only one Team which is a Kanban team linked to Jira.  Since this is Kanban there is no estimated spend values.  Accepted Stories with Story Point values are showing as Accepted in Parent Epics (rolled up from Stories) but is showing no 0 value for Spend on both Stories and Epics,  

At the team view, Five weeks of processing show a Throughput of 7 Stories/wk.  Burn Hours are set to 6. 

Six team members are allocated at 95%  (allocation we set on 5/9/24 - previously was 0)

Program Increment has Blended Rate of $50.

What am I missing for Align to calculate Team Spend per Point, and therefore show Accepted Spend value?

[Steve Sauser]

@Stephen_Miller Thank you for asking about this functionality, please see below for why this is likely not being calculated (these Kanban Teams are likely not adding any point value for their stories, and/or they don't have Team Roles and/or they don't have allocations set).  

Kanban Teams often resist the pattern of Estimating Stories.

• Remember that Capitalization Method is set at the Portfolio level and either all Teams in the Portfolio use Story Points or Task Hours.

  • You can use the “Auto-populate Estimate” for Kanban Teams and this will populate a default value for Stories (only the first time they are integrated into Align).

    • The default ONLY applies if the points are empty at the first time the story is integrated into Align.

      • Zero is an actual value and is not treated as empty.

    • Each Kanban Team could be different for the Estimate so we highly encourage understanding the teams appropriate default value, revisit as necessary.

    • Existing stories would need to be updated to reflect the default value when implementing this on an existing team. This can be accomplished via a JQL query and a bulk update in Jira which will update JA.

• Burn Hours is the value of how many hours are available for “Focus Time” daily per identified Team Members on the team.

  • This value must be populated for each Team and is typically defaulted to 6, but can be altered to be 5, 6, 7, or 8.

• Track By can be set to either Points or Hours, however it is important that this match the Capitalization Method for the Portfolio the team is allocated to.

• All Members of the Team must be in a Team Role

• All Members of the Team must be allocated (by % of dedication to the team).

  • Only “Allocation” and not “Defect Allocation” is used.

  • Without these allocations the Accepted Spend cannot be calculated.

Accepted Spend:

• Calculated by adding together the spend of stories related to the feature, capability, or epic.

• Based upon effort point estimates from accepted child stories.

Estimated Spend

• Feature: Calculated by multiplying the feature estimate by its program's Spend per Point.

• Capability/Epic: Calculated by adding together all the feature estimations (Spend per Point) related to this capability or epic.

• Based upon feature estimates, entered on the main tab of a feature's Details panel. 

  • Note: Feature Forecast flows back to the Details panel when the Sum All is selected for the Planning Interval Estimate.

Forecasted Spend (Epic, Capability, Feature)

• Calculated by multiplying each program forecast by its program Spend per Point.

• Based upon the program PI estimates entered on the Forecast tab of an epic, capability, or Feature.

  • Note: Feature Forecast flows back to the Details panel when the Sum All is selected for the Planning Interval Estimate.

Budget is set at the Epic Level on the Spend tab.

[Stephen.Miller]

@Steve Sauser Thanks for your reply.

All the stories had story points assigned in Jira before moving to In Progress.  The points are showing in Align when the stories are accepted, however it is the Spend value that is 0 due to the Team Spend per Point value being 0.

Is it possible the 0 Team Spend per Point is due to me neglecting to populate team member allocations until week five of processing, since Align uses the previous five weeks to determine the estimated Team Spend per Point? 

Previously the allocations were 0%. Perhaps I need a few more weeks of data with the team allocations set correctly?

[Steve Sauser]

@Stephen_Miller Can you help me know which Spend you are referring to?  

 

[Stephen.Miller]

@Steve Sauser I am referring to Accepted Spend.  I am doing a proof of concept with a non-development team to only track spend and compare to budget allocations in Align. 

There is no Forecasted or Estimated Spend for this project; only trying to capture Accepted Spend, then see that value rolled up the Epic and Initiative level to compare to allocated budget amounts.

[Steve Sauser]

@Stephen_Miller Thank you!  

Yes you need each Member of the Team to be in a Role, Each Member of the Team must also have allocations. 

• All Members of the Team must be in a Team Role

• All Members of the Team must be allocated (by % of dedication to the team).

  • Only “Allocation” and not “Defect Allocation” is used.

  • Without these allocations the Accepted Spend cannot be calculated.

• Accepted Spend is calculated only once per day (overnight).  

I am pretty sure the Role and Allocations (for Kanban) should impact the entire suite for that Kanban Team, which rolls up to a Program Spend per Point. 

You should probably also validate in the Portfolio Specific Configurations and the Team Record that the Capitalization Method (PSC) and the "Track By" (TR) match, if they don't the calculations won't occur.  

• Track By can be set to either Points or Hours, however it is important that this match the Capitalization Method for the Portfolio the team is allocated to.

[Stephen.Miller]

@Steve Sauser The missing piece was anchor sprints for the PI.  Once they were added, Team Spend per Point was calculated for all the previous weeks and the Accepted Spend was generated.  

Even though Kanban teams are not using sprints, the anchor sprints are still needed for Team Spend per Point calculation.

[Steve Sauser]

@Stephen_Miller AH, I see.  It would appear that I made a base assumption that your teams were all connected to a PI/QI and that the PI/QI records all had anchor sprints for the duration of the PI/QI.  

Thank you for your patience on this item and even more importantly thank you for closing the loop so we know you are getting what you need.  

I am going to update my documentation so that we can avoid that assumption specifically.