For an accurate burndown, how do we update tasks regularly against story points?

[Vishnu Magapu]

Hi, 

My team is currently following Fibonacci story point estimation for the user stories in our sprints. Once we finish a user story, we transition it to done and mostly no start date/end date. Our burn-down chart doesn't look accurate. 

I want to be able to track the story progress on the go to generate an accurate burn-down chart. Is there a way to log work in terms of story points instead of hours/days/weeks? I have earlier read an article that suggested estimating in Story points and manually updating the Remaining estimate(which is again in hours/days/weeks).

Can you please suggest how to log story points that are finished on a regular basis?

Thanks in advance,

Vishnu

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

I think you are misunderstanding burn-down and what story points are for.

The burn-down of a story should happen when it is done.  You do not burn down until you can say to the end user that it is complete.  Your burn down charts are "accurate" as long as you have set up the board correctly - all status that mean "done" are in the right hand column, and other status are not.

You would not log work in story points.  Work logs tell you how much effort (usually measured by time) has been expended.  Story points are a measure of complexity, not effort.

[Vishnu Magapu]

Hi Nic,

Thank you for sharing your answer.

Regards,

Vishnu

[john.fazzie]

Hi Nic,

How do you log work in JIRA?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Estimate, plan, burn down/up in story points. 

Log time worked in the time-tracking fields.

Time and estimation are totally separate concepts.  Most humans instinctively understand time estimate and spent, but it doesn't really work for complex tasks, which is why we move to things like story points.  (Example - I could put story points on the tasks needed to write the basics of Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.  In terms of time to do that, you might as well ask my cat for a time estimate)

[john.fazzie]

But how can you express how much is left on a story during sprint planning if a story goes from one sprint to another?

For example, my team works on stories and estimates using story points. If by the end of a sprint a story is not in Done, then we estimate how many points remain by changing the story points. This feels wrong because the total points have never changed. But how do you do this properly?