Time spent on some of the Sub-Tasks is NOT used in Burndown charts

[Prasanna Deshpande]

A story has multiple sub-tasks

Every sub-task has original estimate

Team members are logging Time Spent and we as Remaining Time on regular basis

However for some of the Sub-Tasks the Time Logged or the remaining time is NOT considered in Burndown chart. For other tasks it's considered

For this Sub-Task below the time logged is counted in burndown

For this Sub-Task below the time logged is NOT counted in burndown

[Nic Brough _Adaptavist_]

That is correct, sub-task estimates do not burn-down.

They can not, because the point of a scrum is that you either deliver a story or you do not.  There is no partial delivery, so the estimates on a sub-task are irrelevant to a burn down. 

(They can be useful in other ways, but using them causes complexity that Atlassian have chosen to ignore by saying "estimate on the story level only", where some other tools botch it, either breaking scrum or imposing often confusing methods of handling it that only work for a sub-section of their users)

[Prasanna Deshpande]

Sub-task work logged is counted towards burndown, but it depends on how the work was logged

Use time tracking + button to log work and it's NOT counted

User ... menu ->  Log work and then it's counted

That's what we could figure based observation

[Nic Brough _Adaptavist_]

That's not what I observe. 

[AhmadDanial]

Hi there, Prasanna.

The important thing that I would like to understand first is the reason behind including sub-tasks estimation burndown charts. Is it for granular reporting or the way you keep track of the progress of a sprint as a whole? Any details that you can share will be helpful.

Meanwhile, there is a good post on this matter that discusses about sub-tasks here:

• Story points + subtasks -> burndown chart?

Additionally, this was also raised as a Suggestion since 2012 that you will be interested to check on:

• JSWSERVER-6007: Burndown chart doesn't take under consideration the sub-tasks estimation

Keep me posted soon.

[Prasanna Deshpande]

Yes. It's for granular reporting especially when we are running small duration sprints towards end of a release.

The stories would be typically 2 days of work and tracking those with a granularity of 2-3 hours sub-tasks helps. Otherwise it could be too late for path correction.

Another case where we have a story involving both Front-End work Back-End and integration there are different members working on different areas. So with sub-tasks in burndown gives closer to reality picture on progress.

I'll have a look at those links.

Thanks for your reply.

[AhmadDanial]

Hi, Prasanna.

You are most welcome. Interesting use case. As @Nic Brough _Adaptavist_mentioned, the whole point of a scrum is that you either deliver a story or you do not which explains why it is excluded from Burndown chart and to remain true to the Scrum methodology.

Nevertheless, let us know if you have any further questions from the links shared.

[Florin Moldoveanu]

The burn down is pretty unusable from project management point of view. Stop giving self-serving propaganda to justify inaction and start listening to actual customer concerns.

[Nic Brough _Adaptavist_]

It's not self-serving propaganda, it's an explanation of why it is done this way.

Stop trying to justify doing it the wrong way and improve the way you think about it.