How can i show story points in a JIRA kanban boards

[Priyanka Khare]

How can i show story points in a JIRA kanban boards

[Andy Heinzer · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

There have been several users in the past that have specifically wanted to put estimations on kanban boards.  Ollie's answer has explained there is a way to show that "Story Points" field on a card in a Kanban board, but this isn't the same as being able to estimate issues like you can in a Scrum backlog/board. This isn't something that can be done right now in a Kanban board. There is an open feature request for this in https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWSERVER-7265

It's possible that this might come to Jira Software someday in the future. However I don't know if or when that might be.

Estimations are not something Atlassian views as useful in a Kanban project. I would recommend that users that want this, please read our Kanban vs Scrum https://www.atlassian.com/agile/kanban/kanban-vs-scrum
page. I think it could help to explain the key differences between these two types of agile methodologies, and in turn perhaps you can see the reasons for why Atlassian built kanban boards in this way. The breakdown chart on that page I think can help clarify why Atlassian has created Kanban and Scrum boards in the way it did. Specifically if you look towards Key metrics and Change philosophy of each methodology:

Scrum's

• key metric is Velocity.
• change philosophy is that 'Teams should not make changes during the sprint.' While Kanban change philosophy is 'Change can happen at any time'.

Kanban's

• key metrics are Lead time, cycle time, WIP
• change philosophy permits changes at any time

With these concepts in mind, estimations clearly have great value in Scrum, where the speed at which your team works aka velocity is very important but changes are supposed to be limited between sprints.   But since Kanban's change philosophy permits changes at any time, the estimations become extremely difficult to be useful here or provide value when working under this specific methodology.

I hope this helps explain better why Kanban operates in this way.

While watching and voting on the JSWSERVER ticket can help Atlassian prioritize changes and features, in the meantime, there are other 3rd party solutions that might be feasible for some environments. At least one of these I know of that can help achieve this is the Agile Poker plugin https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/700473/agile-poker-estimation-tool-for-jira?hosting=cloud&tab=overview

There also could be other solutions in Marketplace for this specific functionality.

Regards,

Andy

[Jonathan Ginter]

With all due respect, Andy, Atlassian's position seems to have a very narrow view of the purpose of story points. Story points have nothing to do with speed. They represent the size of the work, which is comprised of effort, complexity and risk. As pointed out in an excellent article on DZone (https://dzone.com/articles/is-there-any-value-in-estimating-if-youre-using-ka), the size of the work is used to help guide prioritization and splitting.

Prioritization is still a thing in Kanban. Constant change merely means constant changes in priority as well. Without the size of the work, prioritization has a serious blind spot in its decision-making.

As for splitting, Kanban boards are fairly useless unless items are moving regularly from one column to another. When an item sits like a lump in the same column for weeks on end, transparency is lost and executives start to question the value of Agile. I've seen teams abandon the use of standups entirely because the status is the same every day. Work that is very large must be split up into smaller tasks that can be tracked. Sometimes that is done with sub-tasks and sometimes it needs to be done at the Story / Task level. Without sizing, that work cannot be done, putting Agile at risk.

Finally, there is the issue of cycle time. I think it should be obvious that the cycle time of a 3-point story is different than the cycle time of an 8-point story. A single cycle time metric that integrates all sizes is horribly inaccurate and cannot be used as a predictor for any given story. Cycle time should be calculated from stories / tasks that have the same size. That would make more sense.

Sizing is important. It's a thing. Kanban needs it. If you don't want to use story points, what do you propose to replace it?

[Rodrigo Ladeira]

Fully agreed, Jonathan! Thanks for putting the point with so great and clear aspects of the impacts we have.

I hope Atlassian work on it very soon too!

[Jin Sun]

Agreed +1 @Jonathan Ginter Thanks for putting such a clear explanation of story point.

[JeltzProstetnic]

I agree, I think the Atlassian view is narrow and dogmatic in this case. Ironically, we use Kanban boards because of the Scrum principle of no-waste. Creating new sprints is waste, it doesn't add any value. Before we had digital boards, did we screw a new board onto the wall after each sprint? No we didn't. 

[Bill House]

Ideology is the end of learning and thus of progress. Jira should ditch the ideology, implement features, and let the community decide how they want to use them.

[krs krs]

+1 let the users decide what they want to use.

We are not asking for a complete redesign of JIRA, just allow an extra field when using Kanban.

Anyway, we are using Story Points with Kanban just fine in JIRA (just by having the field appear in Backlog or on Cards on the board), the big problem is that some areas are completely prohibiting you from using them (IE Advanced Roadmaps :( )

[Matthias Gruber]

@Andy Heinzer do you still want to stick to your philosophy from 2019 after all these obviously valid arguments here?

[Ollie Guan]

Hi @Priyanka Khare,

You can try modify the kanban configuration--Card layout

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwarecloud/printing-issue-cards-785332012.html

[Ari Kurniawan]

i Actually got card layout and success added story point 

But i can not see the field (story point) when i make new isu

[Rob Quist]

It kind of works: it looks horrible and stupid but we're kind of used to that with Jira

[krs krs]

Does kind of work in Backlog and on Board, but is not working at all in Advanced Roadmaps for example :(

If story points are detected there, you simply are forced to use Sprints...

[Zachary Haberman]

I don't know if this helps anyone, but I was able to display story points from a kanban board with the backlog enabled. This is using jira server v8.20 - I can't speak to jira cloud

You have to do two main things:
1. Under "Columns", ensure you have "Epics panel" enabled (with at least one status card being in the "backlog" column)

2. Under "Estimation" ensure you have Story Points selected for "Estimation Statistics"

With those two changes, I can provide story estimates in the same way as with a scrum board. Which is great, considering we use a hybrid of scrum and kanban.

[Jeremy Craft]

@Zachary HabermanOn my Kanban board there is no "Estimation" entry in the board settings.  I see it on our Scrum boards, but it's missing on Kanban. :(

[Priyanka Khare]

@Ollie Guan Still it does not show up. Can u please help me with a screenshot of the kanban board where story points is visible

[Ollie Guan]

I have updated the above screenshot

[Priyanka Khare]

@Ollie Guan okay. Do u have any idea of how we can display story points in releases?? Is this feasible? Both for scrum and kanban boards?

[Ollie Guan]

I have no idea about that case, so I suggest you open another topic to ask this question

[Matthew Bellamy]

Agree it's poor that Story Points don't show to the right of the backlog view like in Scrum. One workaround (other than to add an extra line in to show this as per the above) is to create a Quick Filter with the JQL> "Story Points" is EMPTY which will allow you to quickly show which of your tickets are not yet estimated. At least that way you can spot the tickets you need to provide estimates for. It's not great though but thought I'd share it.

[krs krs]

You can configure this field to appear on the right by setting Board Configuration -> Estimation-> Estimation Statistic to Story Points.

[Matthias Gruber]

I think you are not answering to the correct thread - this is about displaying Story Points on cards in a Kanban board. I cannot reproduce your claimed solution at all.

[Matthew Bellamy]

Hey @krs krs I'd really like to see this feature working but can't find any 'estimation' settings under 'Board Settings' when configured as a Kanban board. Could you clarify how to do this please? At present, I don't think it's possible.

[Zachary Haberman]

It may have to do with your version, I'm on v8.20 and do indeed have the "Estimation" page in the board settings for my kanban board

[Zim __Appfire__]

We're on Jira Server version 8.20 as well, but Estimation only seems to appear as a board config option for Scrum boards, not Kanban.

I wonder if I'm missing a setting somewhere that enables that for Kanban.

[Dennis Bostrøm]

Same here..

On server version 8.20.10, and an active test version of 9.4.0
Estimation does not show in any of them.. 

Please - Could anyone advise how I can enable this?

I have 65 agile teams, where I believe this is a wish from 20 of them (using Kanban)

Kind regards Dennis