Reducing Points per story, during a sprint, and before it's "Resolved"

Question

On our burndown chart, it seems that we can't get any points to reduce during our sprint, even though we log time against the story. Is there a way to reduce the burn down remaining by work in progress, if we alter any of the values ? I expected the logged time to help reduce the story points remaining, and not have to entirely complete the story before we would see impact on the burn down.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

You could track the progress by having a "part complete" type field, or estimating in time and logging work, but that's not what a burndown works on.  The chart works on the things completed in the sprint.  If you do the "how complete is this" thing, it's fine, and there are some other reports that can help you visualise it, but it is, by definition, not a burndown chart.

John Frailey · Answer

Thanks for your prompt reply Nic. But shouldn't you have a way to track progress on a particular story during the work in progress ? I'm not suggesting to change the points, but instead consider the time logged on the story to show you are x% complete , and possibly bring that to the kanban board display in a status bar or such ? or be able to represent it on something like the burn down chart ... ?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

That's not how a sprint would work - you can't measure your actual vs estimates if you are adjusting them mid-sprint and expecting the burn-down to change.  You have to complete an issue for it to count.