Remaining Estimate Time Tracking and Stories. How to Apply Time to Subtasks during Planning

David Wilson_3dsd06

We've adopted a more traditional Agile approch using the Scrum methodology.

We're now using JIRA Agile more closely to its original design (yeay!) but I can't figure out how to apply Subtask Tracking Time during sprint planning.

Our Agile Coach taught us:

Product Backlog Grooming... Apply story points as estimates.

Sprint Planning... break storing into tasks and apply Time Estimates (tracking), and use the Time vs Capacity to load a Sprint. Ultimately our Velocity will provide a better figure for predictive Sprint assignment, but we still plan a sprint using TIME on the tasks, not Story Points like we do during Backlog Grooming.

Great... I get it.

I set the board to Story Point Estimating, and Time Tracking. So far so good. Product Backlog Estimation is working.

During Sprint Planning we're creating subtasks, but in PLAN mode I can't assign the Time to the sub tasks? I can assign Remaining Time at the story level ("Parent"), but not at the subtask level... at least until I start the sprint and go into Work Mode.

This would make sense to me, except when I later add remaining time to the sub tasks, the expectation is that they would then ignore the Parent task (which was simply a starting point for sprint planning). Instead they are ADDING to the Parent amount... so my expectation of its behavior is not correct.

So maybe I'm missing something? Is there access to the SubTask Remaining Time field in the Plan Mode? What about the Edit Screen (I couldn't find it, and can't figure out which field I need to add to the screen)?

What am I missing? Is there a way to add time to sub tasks, or is there a behavior that I'm not grasping?

How am I supposed to do Sprint Planning, if I can't do Time Tracking Estimates as a starting point for my burndown?

David Wilson_3dsd06

Hi Harry, We did in fact figure it out. When you enable Time Tracking in your JIRA instance, you can then add the "Original Estimate" and "Remaining Estimate" fields to the Edit Screen for subtasks. While the solution is not as easy to execute in the Backlog view as it is for the Story itself - because the story shows in the right preview pane, and that field is editable, whereas subtasks must be "edited" and you can't modify them directly from the preview pane - it still is "easy enough", and you eventually will become comfortable with the process.

 

Thus, during Sprint Planning, the userflow is like this (after you've added the above fields to your edit screen scheme):

* Click on story in Backlog.

* Discuss breakout

* Click "Add subtask" button on right preview pane.

* Add your estimation to both the Original Estimate and Remaining Estimate fields that appear in the Create/Edit subtask modal window.

* Click Save.

 

The "KEY" to the solution was realizing that I could add those two fields to the Edit Screen scheme. I didn't realize that before, and it resolved my problem. Also, with this, you NEVER add time directly to a story, but rather to its subtasks. You do, however, still add your Story Points during backlog grooming directly to the story.

 

EDIT:  Also note - When designing the Edit Screen scheme; I believe those two fields are actually referred to as "Time Tracking", collectively.  Thus, by simply adding this one "field", you're actually adding BOTH the Original Estimate and Remaining Estimate fields.  That was the main reason we overlooked it to begin with...  it's named differently that you expect because they grouped them.