Tracking progress of task in percentage

Question

Hello,

I am trying to configure our Jira so that progress tracking of tasks will be in percentage.

I want our developers to update a percentage field reflecting their progress in an issue.

The optimal scenario will be entering estimation and start date, and by using the progress field, understand if a task is about to finish in its estimated date.

Thanks

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

From my experience and others, a unitless percentage that measures nothing you can count is even less "feasible" than putting in proper measurements.  My point here is that it not only are people just as likely to forget to put anything in, they will also invent random and hence useless numbers.

Please, use proper estimates.  A percentage is useless to you in real life, it should be calculated from actual data.

Yoav Ben Arie_zjh6hc · Answer

I can understand your answer root, but from my experience and others, asking teammates to fill in how much time or story points they worked on each issue every day is not feasible, and filling it every couple of days miss the point because they will forget.

My team will estimate their progress in the task using percentage well and easily track and manage it. I don't think they will fill each day how much hours they spent on it, and it isn't the granularity I am seeking.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Percentage of what?  Time?  Story points?  Cups of coffee consumed?

Asking people to put in a percentage of something is generally a complete waste of time.  It's arbitrary, measures nothing, and people will generally forget to do it or just put random numbers in so the people who want the numbers stop asking.

You mention an estimate and start and end date.  I would strongly recommend asking people to say how much work they have done, in the units you are estimating against, and use automation or scripting to calculate the percentage.