How to Use Custom Field(Story Points) in Burndown Reports

Question

The built in "Estimate" field is uneditable after the item is assigned to a Sprint - which is ridiculous - so we don't use this field.  Therefore, we use a custom field for Story Points.  How do I associate this custom field to be used in a Burndown Chart in JIRA?

If this isn't possible, then how can you utilize the Estimate field in a better way?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

I am trying to help, but I'm not sure you are quite seeing what I'm saying.

I did not say anything about splitting a story destroying information.  I said you destroy information by changing estimates after you start a sprint.  If you said "we estimate 4 hours", start a sprint, then change that to 8 hours, you don't know that you originally estimated 4 hours.  That means your velocity and accuracy measures simply no longer work.

The solution is still for you to follow the methodology - estimate before a sprint, start the sprint, and then use the information about how accurate your estimates were in the retrospective.

Chris_zqf3gr · Answer

What a joke - if you're here to teach people agile, try a different site. Splitting a 8 point story into a 3 and a 5 does not "destroy" information. It does not affect the reports. Your attempt at appearing to be an expert is failing. If you don't have a solution, you don't need to be here.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

The good behaviour is good for a reason.  If you change the numbers you started with, reporting on them later is utterly useless.  If you want to do that, then you might as well forget the burndown reports, they can't tell you anything useful.  Of course, that is fine when it comes to versatility and adaptability, as it's entirely up to you to do it that way.  But you can't expect that part of the reporting to work if you choose to destroy the information it relies on.

And, you've kind of missed the point of agile again.  You absolutely should re-estimate, merge, split and break-down issues during grooming.  But grooming happens before the sprint.  Not during.  Or it screws up your estimation basis.