Reporting on non-Epic work

Question

I would like to be able to report on total story points and number of issues over a time period for issues unassigned to an Epic, but I am not sure the best way to do this. Any suggestions?

The larger picture of what I am trying to accomplish is to get an idea if our schedule is on-track, and if not, why? To do this I plan on doing the following:

1) Review all current Epics using the Epic Burndown Report (https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/AGILE/Viewing+the+Epic+Burndown) to make sure we are on target to meet our expected due date.  This report does a good job of telling me why not by showing new issues added and progress on existing issues.

2) Review all non-Epic work and compare summary values (story points worked on, number of issues worked on) of last 2 weeks with historical averages.  I can then investigate any recent aberations.

Thanks for any help.

Gary Hirschhorn · Answer

That's a great idea -- hadn't really thought of creating multiple boards
for a single project.  (Yes, we definitely want to keep epic and non-epic
work in same sprint.)

For my needs, though, I don't think most of the reports are helpful because
they focus on current sprint.  I don't really want to see how we are doing
on non-Epic work (which is mostly bugs) this sprint -- I just want to make
sure it is inline with historical averages.  (Because I am really focussed
on our Epics -- they represent our goals.  I just want to know if my Epics
are behind, what is the reason? If bugs increased over historical levels,
maybe we spent abnormal time fixing bugs.)  However, the velocity report in
this board could be helpful historical reference for non-Epic story points
-- just not for bug counts.

A concern I have would be if this messes up sprints in any way.  Are
sprints associated with a board or a project?  What values does the sprint
field show in an issue when it is on multiple boards?  If we accidentally
move it on the "reporting-only" board does not mess things up?  I can play
around with this and try to figure what happens, but any info is
appreciated.

WeAreAllJustinNow · Answer

Hi Gary,

I think the easiest way to accomplish this is to create a separate board for your issues that are not in an Epic.  For example, you create a filter similar to this JQL: project = "Sample Scrum Project" and "Epic Link" is EMPTY and issuetype not in (Epic)

This will allow you to use the burndown report (and the other JIRA Agile reports, of course) on just your non-epic related stories.

This board would exists for the sole purpose of reporting and wouldn't be used to manage the sprints (I am assuming that you would like to keep Epic-related and non-epic-related stories in the same sprints).

I hope this is helpful.