Adding Story Points to the View of Kanban Boards and Kanban Backlogs?

[Sven Müller]

Hello, can you explain to me what I need to do to make the value of the Field Story Point Estimates visible on Kanban Boards and Kanban Backlogs?

More detailed info on our setup:
We have several teams that all work on one and the same product. This is why all our teams work in one and the same Jira project. We use a Kanban Board and Backlog to visualize our Product Backlog and the progress of all issues. Teams assign work items to their team, in this way the issues remain visible at both the product and the team level. Some teams use Kanban Boards and Backlogs some use Scrum Boards and Backlogs.

Problem in detail:
I have added Story Point Estimates to the Card Layout (for both the Backlog and the Kanban Board View). The teams that are using Kanban Boards and Backlogs do not see Story Point Estimates on their Kanban Boards and Backlogs, those that chose Scrum do see the Story Points on both their Scrum Board and Backlog.

I have read some articles but I can't the answer that refers to the latest Jira Cloud Version. Please help me and let me know what I need to do.

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Sven Müller 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Can you confirm that you are working with a Company Managed Software project? That information will be available in the Type column on the View All Projects page under the Projects menu.

Assuming that you are, there are a default set of fields that display on the cards for issues in a Kanban board. If you want additional fields displayed on the cards in a specific Kanban board, within that board one must go to the board configuration options, to the Card Layout page, and add the fields to the card view. You can add up to three fields to the card view. You have to do that for Backlog cards and the Board cards separately. That will have to be done for each team's board.

[Sven Müller]

Hello @Trudy Claspill 

yes I can confirm that we are working on a company managed software project.

I have already tried that and it does not work. It only allows me to chose Story Point Estimate but not Story Points. So When I add Story Point Estimate as a field, it does not show up neither on the board nor in the backlog.

[Sven Müller]

@Trudy Claspill I checked again and the value of the Story Point Estimate shows up on both the Kanban board and the Backlog. Unfortunately, it looks ugly (2 lines instead of 1) and it does not automatically sum up the amount of story points you pull in when you replenish the queue. Also, because you now have values in two different fields and I am unsure if I can get good data on story points through the API into Power BI.

I really don't understand, why this needs to be a different field in a Kanban Board compared to when you are using a Scrum Board. I mean why is it not possible to use Story Points on a Kanban Backlog the same way you use them on a Scrum Backlog.

[Trudy Claspill]

Regarding the fields you can select from to add to the card, that list should show you the fields that are available to the issue types in your project. It may be limited to the fields that you have added to the Edit/View screens (or the Issue Layout) - I have not fully tested if that is a limitation.

Is the Story points field already available on your issue screens?

In my own environment I am able to add the Story Points field to the cards on a Kanban board for a Company Managed project.

The fields that you add to the Card Layout do, indeed, appear as a second line on the cards in the Backlog, and as additional lines on the cards in the Board.

There are multiple change requests open to add estimates to Kanban board cards by default, as they appear in Scrum board cards. You can add your vote and comments to them.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-7265

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-16957

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-18475

[Sven Müller]

@Trudy Claspill 

Thanks for your answer. I am not a fan of workarounds but in this situation where Jira does not offer a solution to this I am forced to chose between two work arounds. And so for us the easier workaround and less painful one, is to just go back to using Scrum Boards and Scrum Backlogs, knowing that every one in a while we will have to hit the start and complete button and every time we add a ticket to a sprint we have to make one extra click but that is not really a pain compared to all the disadvantages that the Kanban with Story Point Workarounds comes with.

Thanks for adding the links to the change request.
To be honest, when I see that Atlassian knows about this issue for 11 years already and knowing that lots of teams have this issue and then seeing that Atlassian has not provided a solution as of today, I have no hope or trust that they will do something about it.

[Shaunty]

Not having story points in the backlog makes the kanban board worthless for planning. Nothing in the interface or countless other articles on here indicates that this doesn't happen and it is so incredibly frustrating.