Are the rolled up values in GreenHopper (Plan mode) current Sprint useable?

[Alex Street]

Hi we use JIRA (5.1.3)/ GreenHopper (6.0.3) in a small development team that works on multiple discrete projects and various development activities. Last year we implemented SCRUM as our approach to development and at the begining of the year migrated from Agliefant to using JIRA/Greenhopper. Whilst we've found the tool great in general with some recent updates I am unsure of whether we are now using the tool correctly. As a specific, the recent update of GreenHopper now displays the rolled up values of To DO, IN Progress and Done in the running sprint. As we've recently moved from Story Pt estimation to Original estimates, these top level values appear meaningless as some stories have 20+ days estimates for a single developer in a two week sprint - who also have multiple other items in the sprint. Should we limit the sprint stories/ original esitmate to only the time available in the sprint? - if we did this how do we keep the visibility of the original overall development estimate? Linking stories wouldn't achieve this?

[sclowes · Accepted solution]

The absolute values aren't really that important, it's more about the proportion of the estimate that is still to be done vs done (and the remaining time in the sprint).

We've been thinking about changing it to show percentages rather than absolute values. Does that sound more reasonable to you?

Thanks,
Shaun

[Alex Street]

Yes it does. However we've been discussing the issue internally and in reviewing the provided documentation , we were looking at adding a new numeric field called Sprint Estimation which would default to the remaining work (equal to the original estimate if new and in the backlog) which could be overwritten when placed in the sprint to the estimate of ideal days it will be worked on during the sprint. This allows us to the look at actual work Vs targeted & velocity. Then if it goes back into the backlog, the actual remaining work ( based off Original estimate minus work completed in the sprint) is displayed. Now just need to figure how to do it! - Any tips....?