Reports for Jira That Facilitate Decision Making

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Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to tracking results. Some prefer a one-page summary with written explanations, while others let the numbers and charts speak for themselves. Considering the various ways reports can be presented, there are many factors that can vary from one company to another—such as what to report, how often, and how to display the data. It’s likely that no two companies use the same set of Jira reports. To understand which reports are more popular, we will examine some statistics from the most frequently run Jira reports in the eazyBI demo account over the last six months.

1. Story points burn-down in sprint
   This report shows the current trend and optimal burn-down guideline as well as resolved and remaining story points per selected sprint. You can track the total work remaining and forecast the likelihood of achieving the sprint goal.
   
   
2. Sprint velocity chart
   This chart visualizes the amount of work committed and completed from sprint to sprint for selected project or team. This report shows only closed sprints with committed story points. The report also shows version releases parallel in the same project.
   
   
   
   
3. Issues created (bi-weekly)
   The report shows issues created every second week based on week number. Issues created within two weeks sums up created issues in this and previous week. Issues created for this and next week sums up created issues in this and next week.
   
   
   
   
4. Project progress %
   This report uses a horizontal bar chart to visualize the project progress based on the issues created and their status for the selected project. Which way do you prefer to track the project status?
   
   
   
   
5. Issue resolution days over time with trend
   The chart shows the number of issues resolved (bubble size) over time (x-axis) based on the issue resolution date, with certain average resolution days (y-axis) showing a linear trend of average resolution days over time. Using conditional formatting, bubbles representing higher and lower average resolution days are colored.
   
   
   
   
6. Lead time distribution
   The lead time distribution report shows how many issues were resolved within specific time intervals. The cumulative progression of resolved issues (in %) predicts the probability of resolving issues within a particular time interval.
   
   
   
   
7. Issue Resolution Time (Boxplot Chart)
   This boxplot chart represents the distribution of issue resolution days by quarters (filtered by project, issue type, and assignee).
   The boxplot chart type displays the distribution of values in a data set based on five measures: minimum, first quartile, median, third quartile, and maximum.
   The central rectangle spans the first quartile to the third quartile; a segment inside the rectangle shows the median and "whiskers" above and below the box show the locations of the minimum and maximum.
   
   
   
   
8. Issue Epic Gantt Chart
   The Gantt chart illustrates the project status in each quarter. The main attributes of any Gantt chart are the Start and End dates. If you add the Gantt chart to the table with other data points, you can get an advanced overview of the project status.
   
   
   
   
9. Project Prediction report
   This report shows the project’s progress based on resolved issues and predicts project completion based on the historical resolution pace. The prediction is calculated using the average resolution pace in the project between the project start date and the current date multiplied by days in the displayed period before the predicted project end date.
   
   
   
   
10. Active (multiple) sprints story points burn-down
    This chart tracks progress in multiple sprints based on resolved story points. It is mostly useful if the work is realized in several parallel sprints.
    The report covers a time period based on all included sprint start and end dates. For a multiple Sprint guideline, the total number of committed story points is used, regardless of when each particular sprint was started.
    
    

Summary

One common feature of all these reports is that they track progress. Some are designed to display the current status, while others also include predictions on whether the current progress aligns with the project end date.

From these ten examples, we can see many ways to visualize data. It's crucial to find the right approach for your business and the audience who will use these reports for decision-making.

What set of reports do you review regularly? How easy or difficult was it to create a set that addresses your business's key questions?