Is it possible to burn down story points as progress is made in a story\ ticket?

[Deleted user]

I was wondering if it possible to track the burndown of story points before a story is completed. (Somewhat similar to burning down hours in team which estimate by hours).

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

No, it's not.

Jira Software sticks to the full scrum committment and definition of done - either an item you committed to is done, or it is not.  There is no partially done, it's a binary flag.  You only burn-down on items that are done.

There are plenty of good reasons to be able to see progress, but they're not burn-down (because the committed items must be done to burn down), and Jira is weak on reporting that.

[Deleted user]

Clear, thank you Nic.

[Catherine Weisser]

We are struggling with this ourselves. We want to see points burn down through the sprint. But DONE means that it's been accepted at the demo ceremony at the end of the sprint by our Product Owner. That makes our burndown chart pretty useless through the course of the sprint. I should note we release every sprint as well, so our version reports don't really work either in this model. Any suggestions are appreciated! 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

That's not supported.  In Scrum, it's not up to the product owner to say something is done (although they certainly should be defining the definition of done for them!), and it's certainly not done at the demo ceremony.  You mark things done when the developers (and testers if you've included them in the dev team and process) say it matches the definition of done, during the sprint.

It's fine to work differently of course, but for your case, you've gone a way outside the normal definition of Scrum, far enough that Jira doesn't support it.

[Jack Hunter [HeroCoders]]

@[deleted], @Catherine Weisser

How would you like to progress the tasks when it comes to story points? It would be required to plot the burndown chart that you ask for. 

Would you like to mark the progress of story points manually, e.g., with a button or updating the field? Or maybe you would want the system/Jira to do it automatically somehow? 

Your question/case seems pretty interesting on one side, but on the other, my feeling is that your stories should be smaller so marking them complete/done happens fast/often enough to make the standard burndown chart smooth and up-to-date enough.

Cheers,
Jack

[Catherine Weisser]

Hi Jack,

I'm not so concerned with burning down tasks. My question is that as stories are completed, they are queued in the Demo Ready column until the very last day of the sprint when we demo to our product owner for acceptance and they are at that time moved to DONE. Doing so does not allow us to see any points burn down til the last day of the sprint, the chart remains flat(like we haven't made progress) until the last day. Stories are in fact 'Completed' throughout the sprint but can't be marked DONE til demo.

Catherine

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

There is nothing you can do about this in Jira - you're simply got a process that isn't Scrum, so it's not (directly supported)

On the human side, it is fixable.  Your definition of done is currently said to be an absolute, but it is not, it is relative.  The developer's "done" is what you've called "completed", but it's not the same as the product manager's "done".

In "proper" scrum, everyone will have the same definition of done, and in this case, it is what you've said is "completed", rather than your demo's done.

To fix this, have two boards.  There should be a developer's Scrum board which has the "demo ready" status and the "done" status in the very last column (i.e. "done") and does not include the status of done at all.  And then have a Kanban which has the same columns (if you want everyone to see everything, which is usually the best option), plus another one on the right for "done".  Use that board in your demo meetings. 

The weaknesses here are:

• the product manager won't see velocity without going to the scrum board, which is not a good representation for their view of the work, as it ignores stuff they've accepted
• You will need to think about when you close a sprint.  It should be just before or just after the demo meeting, but both options have issues.  If you do it before, then items that might really need more work will have to be re-opened to get them back into the backlog.  If you do it afterwards, you won't get the complete sprint report data to work with during the demo.

[Jack Hunter [HeroCoders]]

@Catherine Weisser, I see.

I did not check how Jira marks issue "Done" in terms of Scrum board, but have you checked following:

• Move "Demo Ready" column/status to the category "Done" (each Jira status can be in any of "Open", "In Progress" and "Done" category)
• Add resolution to "Demo Ready" status. 

Basically, what you want to achieve is to change the meaning of "Demo Ready" status to "Done" so burnt-down chart shows you the desired data. 

If the following does not help then Jira Software probably considers a task complete if it is in the last column. 

Please let us know if it helps or not.

Cheers,
Jack

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I alluded to, but did not explicitly state, what Jira considers "done" on a board (not a project or for a specific issue - this applies only to the board and the sprints for that board) - it's the right hand column. 

Categories and Resolution are irrelevant to the board and sprint, it's just that one rightmost column.

[ksl67]

Jira Software sticks to the full scrum commitment and definition of done - either an item you committed to is done, or it is not.  There is no partially done, it's a binary flag.  You only burn-down on items that are done.

I've noticed that the burndown chart is not burning down story points as stories are resolved. Does this only happen if the issues are closed (as opposed to just resolved)?