How do we calculate sprint velocity in GreenHopper?

[Deleted user]

GreenHopper is a great tool. It lets me plan the project with ease. Earlier the team was using Excel sheets and emails for sprint/release planning which is now recorded in GreenHopper with real time progress report.

The one question that I'm not able to find an answer is how do we plan accurately in future sprints? I mean with SCRUM, we get this sprint velocity. Is there a way to get this calculated automatically in GreenHopper. Any Gadget/Graph that can give me this value? Will this help in Effort Estimation?

[Martin Cooper · Accepted solution]

Greenhopper Charts automatically calculate and display your progress based on the statistics you have set up for that project.

If using the SCRUM Template then Story points and business value are available, if using time tracking then Hours can be used, else its any Custom statistic you have set up or based on number of Issues.

Depending on what your definition of Velocity is and how you calculate, it can only really be seen at the end of each sprint, and this can be derived from the Released Board charts and statistics.

The Chart Board shows your current progress against a guideline so can clearly see where you are and can extract your current velocity from the info here against that required.

So whilst there is no field that says your Velocity is x...the basic information is available

[Jon Cotter]

If you want to accurately calculate your velocity, you'll still have to do it by hand, at least as of 4.2.

You can use the Chart Board statistics but that will include any issue that has been in a sprint, even if it wasnt completed in that sprint (it uses both the version and the version history: this skews my numbers, but might work for others... not sure)

I do it this way:

1. I have a Story Points number field, and calculate my velocity based on this.

2. I created a filter which i called "Story Points Completed" which filters out any issues that were resolved as duplicate, won't fix, or incomplete, and omits any bugs, epics or subtasks (which our team doesnt story point - you may want to tailor this to your needs since some teams like to put story points on bugs).

3. At the end of each sprint, i run the following JQL: Filter = "Story Points Completed" and fixVersion = "11.0" and then export that to Excel (All Fields)

4. I then create a pivot table that Sums up the story points by Component (you also get the total points completed in that sprint), and drop that into Confluence in our tracking page.

Its a very manual process, but only takes about 2 minutes, and gives me the exact level of granularity I need.

Hope some of this helps you.

[Deleted user]

I haven't tried it myself, but the latest versions of GreenHopper has a Scrum template. It has a Story Point field for User Stories and Epics. What I'm unsure of is what support there is with regards to calculations.

Docs are here: http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/GH/Specifying+your+Project+Templates</p<>>