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Estimation on Kanban company-managed space

William Ledda

Hello,

I'm setting up Jira in my company, and I am struggling with estimation company-based projects.

I can enable story point estimation on Kanban boards for team-managed spaces (Space settings -> Features -> Estimation). I cannot find any way to have the same on a company-managed space.

I don't find the Estimation tab on a Kanban board settings. I can find the Estimation tab on the a Scrum board instead. Am i doing something wrong, or is it the expected behavior? If so, can somebody explain why I can have such estimation on a team-managed space, while not on a company-managed space?

I would honestly prefer to use company-managed spaces, to have a common configuration of workflows, types, layout... but I find quite annoying that I cannot use the estimation in the same way.

Accepted answers

William Som

Hi William,

You’re not doing anything wrong — this is how Jira handles estimations.

In company-managed projects, Kanban boards don’t show the Estimation option because Jira treats Kanban as a continuous-flow system. Story points and estimation settings only appear on Scrum boards.

Team-managed projects are more flexible, so you can enable story points on their Kanban boards.

If you want to use story points in a company-managed Kanban board, you just need to make sure the Story Points field is added to your issue screens. You won’t get the full Estimation tab, but you can still assign story points to tasks and cards.

This is expected behavior, and it’s mainly to keep company-managed workflows standardized across the organization.

All comments

William Som

Hi William,

You’re not doing anything wrong — this is how Jira handles estimations.

In company-managed projects, Kanban boards don’t show the Estimation option because Jira treats Kanban as a continuous-flow system. Story points and estimation settings only appear on Scrum boards.

Team-managed projects are more flexible, so you can enable story points on their Kanban boards.

This is expected behavior, and it’s mainly to keep company-managed workflows standardized across the organization.

Björn Brynjar - Smart Guess

Hi there @William Ledda ,

Earlier this year, I created a step-by-step guide on how to do this:
https://smartguess.is/blog/how-to-add-story-points-jira/

Let me know if anything is missing or confusing, so I can improve on it!

I verified what you are saying - Company-managed projects - don't have
- Space settings -> Features -> Estimation

This is surprising! I assume the reason is that it's enabled by default. At least I can follow the guide above and add the "Story points" OR "Original Estimate" fields to the issue as described.

Just so you know, I created the Smart Guess Planning Poker app, which hosts the article above.

Hope this helps!
Bjorn Jonsson
Smart Guess

William Ledda

Hei Bjorn,

Thanks you for our answer and for the guide.I already tried that but unfortunately, the Estimation tab does not appears on the settings of a Kanban board, but only on a Scrum board.

This is e.g. what a Kanban board settings looks like.

Screenshot 2025-11-24 at 13-56-07 TLG10 Kanban Test 2 - Backlog - Jira.png

William Ledda

Hi William,

Thank you for the explanation, and I understand the reason why it is configured in this way. At the same time, it just look weird to me, that you can do that using one type of space and not on the other. It is also a bit weird to explain that to the management, but we have to deal with that.

Björn Brynjar - Smart Guess

You are absolutely right - it seems in Jira Company-managed Projects
- Kanban boards - can not display - Estimate (i.e. the story point estimate field) as you can with a Scrum board:

Kanban - Board view settings (no option to show Estimates)

Screenshot 2025-11-24 at 13.55.50.png

Scrum - Board view settings

Screenshot 2025-11-24 at 13.55.20.png

In this case, I would create a Scrum Board instead and use it as a Kanban board. You can even hide the Backlog - or move it away into the "More" section.

Or you might use the Backlog view to get an overview of upcoming work, see which have story points and which have not, which is helpful during prioritisation or when you are deciding what is next: Screenshot 2025-11-24 at 14.10.32.png

Hope this helps
Bjorn Brynjar

Mykenna Cepek

Scrum boards in Jira have a strong relationship with the "Story Points" field because that data drives the Velocity metrics which are built-in for Jira Scrum boards.

Kanban doesn't rely on Velocity, but the "Story Points" field can still be used. It's frustrating that it doesn't radiate as clearly on the cards on the board. But you can still display "Story Points" on the cards on the board and/or in your backlog using:

Board settings > Layout > Card layout

and then use "+ Add field" to include "Story Points" where you want to see them.

As @William Som wrote, you want to ensure that the "Story Points" is part of your board Layout. And that assumes that the "Story Point" field is part of the related Screen configuration(s).

Most of our Kanban teams are using Story Points just fine.

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