What JIRA Scrum setup to use to benefit from the reporting

[Julian Davchev]

Hello everyone,

So I've been setting up a software development team to use Scrum in JIRA. All is great apart of the vast inconsistencies I see when it comes to actually using all the reporting.

In short I would like such setup that I can make use of:

- burndown chart

- sprint report

- velocity chart

- version report

- epic report

- control chart

- epic burndown

- release burndown

Also I'm assuming the structure of Epics -> Stories  -> Sub-task is used

Seems quite logical to be able to do all that but then again tons of problems appear when you start using this.

To name a few:

- if you estimate subtasks then the total estimate will not appear on story level hence backlog prioritization and picking sprint stories becomes a nightmare

- if you don't estimate tasks..people are confused where do they log their time - even if using story points and not time and even if you look as sub-tasks just like done/not done there are inconsistencies in the reporting and can't make use of the reporting.

So I've read a tons of posts and all I see are problems and no actual solution to use JIRA for software development.

I would love to hear how you boys&girls have solved this issue. I'd like to stay within JIRA environment and not use tons of event hooks and pouring data outside/ creating excel files etc.

Much appreciated any feedback.

Thanks

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

I mostly see it used as Atlassian built it.  You usually estimate stories with Story Points, and then when you need work logs, you add them to sub-tasks and stories as needed.

You don't put scrum estimates on sub-tasks, because you don't commit to sub-tasks in scrum, you commit to a story, and a story is either done or it is not.

[Julian Davchev]

Hmm, I don't quite understand what you mean by:

"and then when you need work logs, you add them to sub-tasks and stories as needed."

Are you suggesting that on sub-tasks you just log time for example..but there are no estimates for the sub-tasks?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Sorry, I was not clear there.

There are no scrum estimates for sub-tasks.  You can still estimate time on them, but that will not be of any use in your charts, which is why I said to use Story Points instead.

If you want to base your scrums on time estimates, you can, but you will need to abandon time estimates on sub-tasks because they won't work and will make your scrum reports look wrong.

Have a look at https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/estimate-in-story-points-938845204.html (the "estimate in points, track in time" section)

[Julian Davchev]

I read the article and your suggestions.

So to summarize: to make the most of JIRA reporting

1. Use story points estimates on Stories

2. Use no estimates on sub-tasks

This will make use of all burndown reports (sprint,epic,release)and predictions.

3. In addition... if willing to see workload (e.g.  how much time spend on each sub-task) people can just log time in each subtask and this will not affect burndowns (scrum) in any way.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, that's pretty much the best way to work with Jira here.

[Julian Davchev]

Thanks a lot Nic! Will play with this a bit and get back to you with feedback. Much appreciated :)

[Ramanathan Yegyanarayanan]

@Nic Brough -Adaptavist- Just a small correction, Team commits to the sprint goal not to the sprint backlog. May be we need to work on that in our JIRA Product.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, sorry, that is true.  A sprint goal will include the sprint backlog, otherwise it's not a lot of use though.