Story points at the task level versus the sub-task level

[Thayne Munson]

I have been following the standard guidance of only putting story points at the task/story level and not at the sub-task level.  I was under the impression that story points at the sub-task level would not be included in Jira's Velocity Report.  At the same time, I am using Portfolio Plans and it appears that there is a roll-up field that includes both the story/task points and the sub-task story points.  So my question is, are sub-task story points actually part of velocity reporting or is the Portfolio roll-up field just an additional field that is available when using Portfolio and is NOT part of the basic Jira velocity reporting?  Sorry if this is confusing.  I am trying to set a standard in my organization for story pointing but this subject confuses the issue. In addition to this confusion, if one of the sub-tasks is for programmer A but the story/task is for programmer B, then Jira will not reflect the sub-task story points for programmer A.  

[Ajay _view26_]

Hi @Thayne Munson 

There is no built-in functionality to roll up story points from sub-tasks to parent Stories at least in Jira Software.

You can have a look at the below post 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/How-can-you-automatically-sum-the-story-points-of-all-subtasks/qaq-p/863364

Another  interesting discussion 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/burndown-chart-to-show-story-points-from-sub-task-or-technical/qaq-p/130051

[Thayne Munson]

Thanks Ajay.

[Bryan McMillan]

@Thayne Munson ,

Such a feature as @Ajay _view26_ pointed out is not Out-Of-the-Box (OOB) functionality.  However, you can extend Jira to perform this action by installing PowerScripts the App and write a Script to roll up the Story Points from Sub-Task to the Sub-Task's Parent.

Regards,

Bryan

[Thayne Munson]

Thanks Bryan. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Bear in mind a flat simple roll-up in the same field breaks everything in interesting ways.

[Thayne Munson]

Since starting this discussion I found a number of other discussion threads addressing this issue.  The guidance seems clear in that we should not be story pointing sub-tasks.  

[Bryan McMillan]

@Thayne Munson ,

Yes, you are most correct.  Nonetheless, I have been involved with too many teams in different paradigms that have on more than one occasion "bent" the Agile implementation in other ways.  That said, it is not hard using tools such as PowerScripts to implement a number of what I normally call process guardrails.

Bryan

[Thiago Cunha]

Why would you use story points for subtasks? Just measure story points for stories. I use hours for subtakss to have better accuracy for my sprint plan. If not don't mind the story points in tasks. Why? 

Story points measure how much of the business requirement is complex and how much we are uncertain of it. The subtasks reflects the technical process and it's the developer responsability.  If the subtasks are big enough to need story points there might be something wrong. Are the stories "SMART"? Are they small enough to fit in the sprint? 

I know this is not the answer you expected but this is reflection point is my contribution

[Thayne Munson]

Thanks Thiago.  I appreciate your insights.