How to control the span of your plan with a Jira app

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Managing your project’s plan in Jira becomes much simpler when you can accurately estimate the effort required to complete tasks. A jira app like Team Planner provides features specifically designed to monitor your plan and keep it manageable. Utilizing these ensures that your project remains organized and under control. 

Displaying Effort Estimates

The first step to controlling the scope of your plan is understanding the effort involved in each task. Team Planner offers the ‘Estimations’ feature that lets you see the estimated time and effort needed for tasks in your plan. These estimations can be displayed in two ways.

 1. Story Points

Selecting 'By Story Points' allows you to display the effort of your tasks using story points. These story points are shown next to the priority value on each task box, making it easy to see at a glance. Additionally, the app sums up all the story points of your tasks and displays the total at the top of your plan,  allowing you to gauge the overall effort required.

2. Original Estimation

Selecting 'By Original Estimate' lets you view each task's original estimated time. This estimate is displayed next to the priority value on the task box. Like with story points, the app sums up all the time estimates of your tasks and shows the total at the top, providing a clear picture of the total time commitment needed. 

Managing Capacity and Estimates by User

Effectively controlling your plan size means managing the workload of individual team members too. In your plan, under each user’s name, you can see three key values:   

• Available working days: the number of working days available for the user.
• Number of issues allocated: the number of tasks assigned to the user within the plan.

• Total estimate of tasks assigned: the total effort estimated for the tasks assigned to the user. These estimates adapt based on whether you choose to display story points or original estimates. The total values of the selected estimates (story points or original estimates) from the tasks assigned to the user are summed up, giving you a comprehensive view of each team member’s workload. If a task is assigned to multiple users, it's counted the same for each user.

Monitoring Progress

To keep your plan on track, monitoring progress is essential. When you set Team Planner to show the estimates, a progress bar appears at the top of the plan. This bar indicates how far you are from completing your plan by calculating the percentages based on the Jira issues estimates and their status categories. (You’ll find more information about status categories here).

Conclusion

Using an app like Team Planner helps you get the right size of your plan and keep it under control. With special features to display effort estimates, manage the capacity of each user, and monitor progress, you can make sure that your team can complete their tasks efficiently.