5 Jira reports to drive annual performance insights

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How was your 2024? As the year wraps up, it’s the perfect time to reflect on your team’s achievements. But how do you turn the abundance of data in Jira into meaningful insights? The answer lies in utilizing the correct reports. Jira offers a range of tools that can help you evaluate team performance and uncover trends over the past year. In this article, we’ll explore some reports you might want to check when reviewing the annual results team’s potential and drive better outcomes in the year ahead.

1. Workload Pie Chart: How many issues were created in each project during the year?

The Workload Pie Chart offers a quick and clear overview of how issues were distributed based on some criteria (issue field). For our case, we selected the project because it represents different teams in development, support, QA, etc. You can select any parameter, such as assignee, status, label, or another.

By breaking down the number of issues created in each project, this chart helps you answer critical questions such as:

• Which projects required the most attention or resources?

• Were some projects significantly more active than others?

• Are workload distributions aligned with team capacity and priorities?

For example, if one project dominates the chart, it might indicate a need for additional resources or better workload balancing. Conversely, projects with few or no issues could suggest underutilized teams or misaligned focus.

2. Issue Statistics: What issue types dominated during the year?

Issue Statistic Gadget in Jira provides a high-level overview of issues within a project or filter, grouped by a specific field. It visually represents how issues are distributed based on attributes like status, priority, issue type, assignee, or other custom fields.

By breaking down the number of tasks, bugs, stories, and other issue types, this report helps you answer critical questions such as:

• Which type of work dominated the team’s efforts?

• Is the team spending too much time fixing issues compared to delivering new features?

• Are higher-level initiatives like epics and technical tasks being prioritized appropriately?

If tasks and bugs dominate the chart, it may indicate a focus on operational activities and quality fixes, possibly at the expense of strategic work. On the other hand, a low number of epics or technical tasks could suggest missed opportunities to tackle long-term goals or technical improvements.

3. Created vs. Resolved Issues Report: Was the team resolving issues as quickly as they’re being created?

The Created vs. Resolved Issues Report offers a clear visual representation of how issues were created and resolved throughout the year. The red area represents issues created, while the green area shows issues resolved. Overlapping areas indicate balance, whereas gaps highlight months of backlog growth or reduction. This chart helps you answer important questions such as:

• Are we resolving issues at a pace that matches or exceeds creation rates?

• When were the busiest months for issue creation or resolution?

• Are there recurring periods of backlog growth or resolution surges?

Insights you can gain:

• Identify seasonal patterns. For example, a spike in issue creation during mid-year might signal a high-demand period for your team.

• Monitor trends. Months with more created than resolved issues indicate growing workloads or resource constraints.

This report is particularly valuable for end-of-year reviews, helping teams plan resources and refine processes for the upcoming year.

4. Resolution Time Report: What was the average time to resolve issues?

The Resolution Time Report provides a clear view of how long it takes, on average, to resolve issues over a given period. This report helps you assess team efficiency and identify trends in resolution speed.

This chart helps you answer such questions:

• How long does it typically take to resolve issues?

• Are there any trends of increasing or decreasing resolution times over time?

• Were there specific periods with unusually high or low-resolution speeds?

 

This report is a valuable tool for tracking team productivity and ensuring resolution timelines align with project expectations. For instance, if the report shows prolonged resolution times for specific issue types, it may indicate bottlenecks or areas where process improvements are needed. Conversely, a trend of decreasing resolution times could reflect enhanced workflows or resource allocation.

5. Issue History for Jira: What issue fields were updated most often?

The Issue History Report logs updates to the issue fields like status, sprint, or any other custom or standard field, showing who made the changes and when. It also provides a specific breakdown of how often issue fields have changed over time. 

Here, we selected this year and opened the columns manager to see the total number of changes for each field in 2024. This helps to answer such questions:

• Which fields are updated most frequently, and what does this reveal about team priorities?

• Are specific issues undergoing excessive changes, signaling ambiguity or workflow challenges?

• Who are the most active contributors to issue updates, and how is the workload distributed?

What insights you can gain:

• By analyzing the frequency of changes to specific fields (e.g., Status, Sprint, Labels), you can see how issues progress through workflows.

• Repeated changes to fields like "Remaining Estimate" or "Status" may highlight challenges in task execution or estimation.

• If many edits were made to "Comment", it shows active teamwork but might also signal communication issues.

• Repeated updates to "Description" or "Summary" can indicate the need for clearer requirements upfront.

• It helps to audit team activity and verify accountability by showing who made specific updates and when.

• Monitoring rarely used fields may help identify unnecessary or redundant fields, allowing you to simplify workflows and reduce clutter in your Jira instance. 

Try Issue History for Jira to get your insights

We hope these reports will help you gain valuable insights into your past activity and provide an overview of your yearly performance in Jira. Are there any reports that you use or the ones you would find helpful? Please share with the community in the comments below.