What is the intention of the original story points in relation to story points?

[Katarina Nastos]

We sometimes do not finish an issue during a sprint. Then we dont want the entire workload moved to the next sprint, since some of it was done. Say for example that a story was estimated to 8 storypoints, and 5 were done. We would like to be able to deminish the 8 to a 5 without loosing the information that it was originally 8, so that when the work is done we still know that we made a totalt of 8 story points. 

Is the above the way one should use original story points? Is one supposed to at first estimation write original story points 8 + story points 8, and then when the issue is moved to sprint 2, change story points to 5 but leave 8 in original story points?

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Katarina Nastos , unfortunately if a story doesn't complete in a sprint then any work will not apply to the sprint. The only work around would be to create a new story to capture the work done and add that story to the sprint. The reason for the use of "original" story points is simply to illustrate the difference between the starting and remaining numbers.

[Katarina Nastos]

Thanks for your reply. However we are not interested in workarounds, but we are trying to understand how Jira intended users to use the fields original story points and story points. Does anyone know?

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Katarina Nastos , I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. OSP is intended to be used as an initial, rough estimate of the work you're planning to do.

I have gathered two different references that hopefully will answer your question more completely. Please let me know if this is not the case.

in this article I found the following info...

There’s one important thing you should know about the Story points field and how it’s different from the Original story points field.

You can add the Story points field only through the Screens configuration. You’ll see this field with its original name Story points in the full issue view. Also, if you open the issue on the board, you'll see the Estimate field that is the same as Story points. The behavior of the Estimate field depends on the estimation configuration on the board:

• If the estimation configuration is set to story points, the Estimate field in the issue view will contain a numeric value indicating the number of set story points.

• If the estimation configuration is set to original time estimate or original story points, the Estimate field will contain the value Unestimated. 

• If the estimation configuration is set to issue count, you won't see the Estimate field in the issue view on the board.

The Original story points field can be added both through the board configuration and the Screens configuration. So, you can manage this field in the same way as the Sprint field in the above example. 

Why is it so and what’s the difference between these concepts? This is the Jira way: you can add the Story points field to the issue view only by adding it to the issue screen schemes. 

The difference between story points and original story points is the following: if you're using story points as the estimation unit in your project, you can use original story points as initial, rough estimates of the work you’re planning to do.

Then, you can use original story points as references when you start breaking down and providing more detailed estimates for your work. So, you can compare the accuracy of the original estimates against the actual ones.

And here is a previous Community post on the topic...

Original-Story-Points-Use-Case