🔍 Kanban velocity report vs. Jira's native charts: Which actually helps your team? 🎯

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Kanban teams need a consolidated view of completed work over time to track velocity trends, compare performance across one or multiple teams, and spot changes in delivery stability. Without this visibility, teams struggle to answer critical questions: "How much work do we typically complete each week?" "Is our delivery pace improving or declining?" "How does Team A's velocity compare to Team B's?"

The Kanban velocity report, part of the Agile Velocity Charts app by Broken Build, provides exactly this consolidated view, turning raw completion data into actionable velocity metrics.

👉 Explore this interactive Kanban velocity chart 📊 example to see how it transforms completed work tracking into clear velocity patterns.

But first, let's address what's missing in Jira's default reporting capabilities.

The limitations of Jira's native chart

Here's the reality: Jira doesn't provide a native velocity chart for Kanban boards. While Scrum teams get a basic velocity report for sprint tracking, Kanban teams have no equivalent dashboard gadget to visualize how much work they complete over consistent time intervals.

This absence creates significant gaps for continuous flow teams:

❌ No Kanban velocity visualization: There's no native way to see how much work your Kanban team completes per time period (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly) on your Jira Dashboard, leaving teams without historical completion data.

❌ Missing trend analysis: Without velocity tracking over time, teams can't identify performance patterns, spot delivery stability changes, or measure whether process improvements are actually working.

❌ No performance comparison: Organizations running multiple Kanban teams have no native tool to compare velocity across teams or understand relative team capacity using standard Jira charts.

❌ Limited breakdown options: You can't analyze what types of work contribute to completed work (bugs vs. features) or which team members are driving delivery without manual tracking outside Jira.

❌ Zero goal tracking: There's no way to set velocity targets and visualize whether teams are meeting consistent completion goals over time.

These limitations force Kanban teams to either manually track velocity in spreadsheets or operate without this crucial visibility into delivery patterns.

Powerful alternative: Kanban velocity report by Broken Build

The Kanban velocity report addresses these gaps with a purpose-built solution for tracking completed work over time. It provides the consolidated view Kanban teams need to understand their delivery patterns, spot velocity trends, and compare performance across one or multiple teams.

The report is designed for simplicity and configurability - choose your time intervals (weeks, bi-weeks, or months), select what to measure (story points, issue count, or any numeric field), and immediately see your team's completion patterns visualized on your Jira Dashboard. Whether you're tracking a single team or comparing velocity across multiple Kanban boards, the report scales to your needs.

Let's explore exactly how the report's features work together to bring velocity visibility to your Kanban workflow.

Kanban velocity report: Key features & JTBD

The Kanban velocity report provides powerful capabilities that transform completed work tracking into actionable velocity insights. Each feature addresses specific limitations of native Jira reporting.

📊 Kanban velocity measurement across one or multiple teams

This foundational capability lets you track velocity for single teams or aggregate data across multiple Kanban boards. Whether you're managing one team or coordinating several, the report adapts to your organizational structure.

👤 One Kanban team (one board): Perfect for individual team tracking, showing how much work a single team completes per time interval. The chart displays completion bars for your chosen periods (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly), giving immediate visibility into team capacity and delivery consistency.

👥 Multiple Kanban teams (multiple boards): Scale up to program-level visibility by combining data from multiple Kanban boards. This cross-team view enables performance comparison, capacity planning across teams, and identification of which teams maintain the most stable velocity patterns.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Flexible scope: Start with single-team tracking and expand to cross-team analysis as your needs grow

• Standardized metrics: Compare velocity across teams using consistent measurement approaches

• Program visibility: Aggregate completion data for portfolio planning and resource allocation decisions

• Team benchmarking: Identify high-performing teams whose practices can be shared organization-wide

📈 Velocity trends with moving average

Beyond displaying raw velocity data per interval, this feature adds a moving average trendline that smooths out normal fluctuations and reveals genuine performance patterns. The trendline helps you distinguish between typical variation and meaningful changes in team capacity.

The moving average calculation uses your historical velocity data to show whether your team's completion rate is genuinely improving, declining, or holding steady over time - cutting through the noise of individual interval spikes or dips.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Spot real trends: See whether velocity is actually changing or just experiencing normal variation

• Measure improvement impact: Validate whether process changes are genuinely increasing completion rates

• Avoid overreaction: Don't panic over one slow interval when the trend shows stability

• Support planning confidence: Use trend direction to adjust capacity assumptions for upcoming work

• Enable retrospective insights: Bring trendline data into team retrospectives to discuss what's driving performance changes

🎯 Target lines for delivery expectations

Set performance targets directly on the chart to visualize whether your team is hitting velocity goals. Add target lines representing expected completion rates (e.g., "we need to complete at least 30 story points per bi-week") and see at a glance when actual delivery meets, exceeds, or falls short of expectations.

Target lines can represent team commitments, capacity planning assumptions, service level objectives, or continuous improvement goals. The visual comparison between actual velocity and targets makes performance conversations objective and data-driven.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Make goals visible: Everyone sees whether the team is on track without interpreting raw numbers

• Align expectations: Stakeholders understand realistic completion rates based on historical performance

• Drive accountability: Teams take ownership of meeting velocity commitments when targets are transparent

• Celebrate wins: Recognize when teams consistently beat targets, reinforcing successful practices

• Identify gaps early: Spot when velocity falls below targets before it affects delivery commitments

🔍 Multi-level issue filtering and breakdown for deep analysis

This powerful combination gives you both filtering control and breakdown visibility to understand exactly what contributes to your velocity.

1️⃣ Multi-level issue filter: Use JQL to pre-filter which work items count toward velocity calculations. Create focused reports showing only planned work (excluding unplanned incidents), specific issue types, particular releases, or any combination that matches your analysis needs. Layer multiple filter criteria to zero in on precise data sets.

2️⃣ Breakdown and issue list: Break down completed work by any Jira field - issue types, priorities, assignees, components, labels, releases, epics, or custom fields. The chart displays these breakdowns as stacked segments within each time interval, revealing work composition at a glance. Click through to see the actual issue list contributing to each metric.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Understand composition: See what types of work consume velocity (e.g., "40% of our capacity goes to technical debt")

• Track initiative progress: Monitor velocity dedicated to specific epics or releases without separate reports

• Balance workload: Visualize individual contributions to ensure appropriate work distribution

• Answer "why" questions: Drill into velocity changes to identify root causes immediately

• Create focused views: Filter out noise to analyze only the work types that matter for specific discussions

⚙️ Additional capabilities for workflow precision

Beyond the core features, the report includes configuration options that adapt to your specific workflow needs:

Custom done statuses

Define which workflow statuses count as "completed" for velocity calculations. This flexibility accommodates teams with non-standard workflows or multiple "done" states, ensuring the chart measures completion according to your Definition of Done rather than assuming standard status names.

Time-based grouping

Choose the reporting interval that matches your planning rhythm - daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly. The report groups completed work by your selected timeframe, letting you analyze velocity at the granularity that makes sense for your team's cadence and stakeholder reporting needs.

🎯 Why this helps:

• Workflow adaptation: Measure completion accurately regardless of your custom Jira workflow configuration

• Reporting flexibility: Match velocity tracking to your team's actual planning and review cycles

• Consistent measurement: Ensure everyone agrees on what "done" means when calculating velocity metrics

In summary: These features work together to give Kanban teams the velocity visibility that Scrum teams take for granted. You gain consolidated completion tracking, trend analysis, performance comparison capabilities, and deep analytical breakdowns that native Jira simply doesn't provide for continuous flow environments.

How Kanban velocity report works in action (Interactive example)

The best way to understand this report is to experience it firsthand. We've created a fully interactive demonstration using real project data that you can explore right in your browser.

In the example, you'll see exactly how the gadget displays completed work across time intervals, how the moving average reveals velocity trends, how breakdowns show work composition, and how target lines provide visual goal tracking. Adjust the settings, experiment with different configurations, toggle breakdowns by issue type or assignee, and watch the chart respond in real time.

👉 Try the interactive Kanban velocity gadget 📊 example - it's a fully functional demonstration of what you'll get on your own Jira Dashboard!

Kanban velocity report: Pro tips

Beyond the core features, here are advanced techniques to maximize value from your velocity tracking:

💡 Create comparison views with different filters: Add multiple Kanban velocity chart instances to your dashboard, each with different JQL filters. One showing all work, another showing only planned features, and a third showing unplanned incidents. Side-by-side comparison reveals how much reactive work affects your capacity for planned delivery.

💡 Leverage breakdowns to balance work types: Use issue type breakdowns to ensure healthy velocity distribution. If your chart shows 70% bug fixes and 30% features for several intervals, you have concrete data for conversations about technical debt investment versus new capability delivery. Aim for a sustainable mix that supports both maintenance and innovation.

💡 Drill into velocity drops with issue lists: When an interval shows lower-than-expected velocity, click through the breakdown to see the actual issue list. You might discover that high-complexity items, blocked work, or team absences explain the dip - turning abstract metrics into actionable insights for retrospectives.

Setting up Kanban velocity report on your Jira Dashboard

The Kanban velocity report is part of the Agile Velocity Charts app, available as a separate gadget or inside the Agile Reports & Gadgets bundle. Getting it running takes just a few minutes:

1️⃣ Go to your Jira dashboard: Navigate to any existing dashboard where you want to track velocity, or create a new dashboard for this purpose.

2️⃣ Click "Add gadget": Access your dashboard's gadget menu to browse available reporting options.

3️⃣ Search for "Agile Velocity Charts": Find the app in the gadget directory - it provides the Kanban velocity report functionality along with other velocity analytics.

4️⃣ Click "Add" and configure: Select one or multiple Kanban boards as your data source, choose your estimation field (Story Points, issue count, etc.), set the time interval length, configure any breakdowns, filters, moving average display, or target lines you want shown.

🚀 You're all set! The chart populates with your historical completion data and updates automatically as your team completes more work. Anyone with dashboard access can now see velocity patterns, trends, and performance against targets at a glance.

🎯 Transform Kanban velocity from mystery to a measurable metric!

Implementing the Kanban velocity report fundamentally changes how teams understand delivery patterns and set capacity expectations. Instead of vague statements about team productivity, you have concrete data showing completion trends over time. The moving average cuts through normal fluctuations to reveal genuine performance patterns. Target lines make goals transparent and drive accountability. Deep breakdowns answer the "what" and "why" behind velocity changes.

✅ Key advantages you gain:

• Single and multi-team tracking: Measure velocity for individual teams or aggregate across multiple Kanban boards for program-level visibility

• Trend analysis with moving average: See whether completion rates are genuinely improving, declining, or stable by filtering out normal variation

• Goal-oriented performance: Set target lines for delivery expectations and visualize Kanban team performance against commitments

• Deep analytical breakdowns: Understand work composition by issue type, assignee, priority, or any field to spot imbalances

• Workflow precision: Configure custom done statuses and time-based grouping to match your specific process needs

👉 See these benefits in action: Explore the interactive Kanban velocity report 📊 example that demonstrates exactly how completion tracking transforms from abstract to concrete.

Ready to add these capabilities to your Jira instance? Install either the Agile Velocity Charts app as a standalone gadget or the Agile Reports & Gadgets bundle. All options offer a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, and they're completely free for teams of up to 10 users - making it risk-free to evaluate whether velocity tracking adds value to your workflow.

🚀 Start tracking velocity today! Add the Kanban velocity report to your dashboard and finally answer "how much can we deliver?" with confidence backed by real completion data.

✨ Stop wondering "how much can we deliver?" - let velocity metrics answer with confidence!

[Jayesh Raghuvanshi]

Great Article !!!!!