Reset rank?

Question

Hi there,

A question came up today that I couldn't find an answer for in the docs:

We use the ranking to prioritize stories in the backlog. After a few sprints, we're noticing now that upcoming stories have ranks of e.g. 35, 47. This leads us to assume that, with time, the rank for new stories will get higher and higher. We'll still be able to tell which is the highest rank / lowest number, but the absolute numbers will continue to increase.

Is there perhaps something we're missing to make finished stories "give up" their rank to keep the numbers generally lower? Can the rank maybe be "reset" based on the currently unfinished backlog? Or do you recommend working with ever-increasing ranks?

Thanks for any feedback anyone can provide!

Alex

Alexandra Schla · Answer

Hi Renjith,

Thanks for the reply. The ranking I'm using is the one described here. There doesn't seem to be any mention of it being internal, and we're using it for the use case described in the article: to provide a fine-granular ordering for the backlog. I agree that when we're sorting by rank that the order is the key, so the actual numbers don't make a difference, but the team was wondering whether the numbers will keep increasing. I understand from your answer that there's no way to "reset" the baseline.

Thanks!

Alex

Renjith Pillai · Answer

You should not be looking at the absolute ranks of the issues at all. That is really an internal value. What is the usecase for this?

Resetting can be tricky and it is best to leave it untouched rather than breaking JIRA Agile :)