Story points + subtasks -> burndown chart?

argosy_ops

Hi everyone!
I'm having a conceptual problem with Jira Agile and hope someone has a good hint for me.

The way it's used
We are using Jira Agile with story points since to us, this abstract value appears better to measure velocity than actual time spent. At the same time, we are using subtasks to describe the work that needs to be done in order to create a feature (the parent task).

As an example: The feature (parent task) is "Playable character" and the subtasks are concept art, 3D model, texture and so on. That way, we can break the feature down to specific work and can easily track the feature's budget spend in Tempo.

The problem
Jira gives us an interface to do story point estimations for tasks, but not for subtasks. As a result, a feature isn't necessarily implemented 100% in one sprint (e.g. because it's still in QA and thus, not yet "done"). So if e.g. 90% of the work for one feature has been done in one sprint, it is not reflected in the burndown chart, since the respective feature is still not set to "done". This is a case we often have and kind of goes against the idea of using a burndown chart to track velocity. We've actually burned down a lot of the respective user story or feature, but the chart says 0.

Any strategy on how to deal with that issue?

EddieW_h8oivr

This is a much discussed topic, but points are only estimated at the story level for the whole effort, including all testing.

There is no value to the end user until a feature is full designed, coded and tested, and stories reflect that.

You can use Epics (very large stories) to span multiple efforts and break out stories that deliver smaller (complete) deliverables within the larger feature.

The idea of stories carrying through is common, and for larger stories it is common for most of the burndown to occur late in the sprint.