Can JIRA Portfolio time-based estimates be based on cycle time from Jira Software?

Question

JIRA Portfolio can import and use story points on each story ticket for Scrum Teams, but for Kanban teams can JIRA Portfolio base the duration of time for each ticket from the team's cycle time in JIRA Software? If not, how does JIRA Portfolio set the duration for each ticket, as part of a continuous flow? Can T-Shirt sizes on each ticket in JIRA Software be imported into JIRA Portfolio and configured with a set duration of time, for the estimate?

Martin Suntinger · Accepted Answer

Hey Jim, Portfolio currently doesn't support scheduling based on cycle time, it can only go off from point estimates and a team velocity or time estimates and the teams weekly hours capacity.

We have an explicit scheduling mode for kanban on our roadmap based on throughput from the control chart in JIRA Software, but until we have dedicated support, the most common workaround seems to be to configure a Kanban team actually as Scrum with weekly iterations, and use the "default estimates" feature in the plan settings to size the stories in a way that reflects the current throughput. Let's say your team has a throughput of 7 stories per week, you could configure a team as Scrum with 1 week iteration lengths, give it a velocity of 7, and set the default estimate to 1, so you'll get a schedule in weeks, and 7 stories will get scheduled into each week to project into the future.