Does cancelling a story remove it from points planned?

Michael Holian

Hi all,

As I look at the program allocation report for my team, I see that the team is very often meeting points accepted vs. points planned. I know we cancel a good number of our stories as we go, I'm thinking a story that gets canceled will not show up in the 'Points Planned'  calculation.

There are legitimate reasons to not complete a story from a Feature, and I recognize that a canceled story should definitely not be considered in the Points accepted. Leaving the story open as you close the sprint in Jira would just roll the story to the next sprint, what alternatives do I cave to canceling the story that will remove it from the backlog while still reflecting it in the points planned calculations?

Steve Sauser

@Michael Holian Thanks for submitting your question.  

Once a Story is included in a Sprint and that Sprint has been started it will be part of the planned story points.  If that story is going to be cancelled it is necessary to remove it from the sprint (send to backlog in Jira).  Cancelled is a final status just like Done is a final status.  

If you are not completing the work of the story it should be removed from the Sprint so that the points are not realized.  

Any Story that is in a Final Status (Resolution is not = Unresolved) should be removed from the Sprint and the Story will not display in the backlog.  

• Note:  In Jira Align the Hide Accepted Work Items from the backlog would be necessary to not see it in the backlog.