Weighted Issue Prioritization in Jira

Jacek Darlinski July 28, 2017

I'm a product manager, so I want to be able to collect data on my issues in Jira and automatically see a calculated priority value of this issue:

  • I have a set of standardized metrics captured in custom fields that I can apply to my tickets: Urgency (Hotfix, Critical, Trivial), Count of users impacted, Strategic Focus (High,Medium,Low), Issue Value, LOE and the like.
  • Each of these metrics needs to be translated to some numerical value that can
    be added up to get a score. This numerical value is a representation
    of a picklist. E.g. Hotfix = 5, Critical = 3, Trivial = 1.
  • Each of these metrics has some weight when compared to each other, e.g. Urgency counts 15% towards a final score, LOE counts 20%.
  • I use these values to calculate a priority score like this: (Metric1 * WeightMetric1) + (Metric2 * WeightMetric2) + (Metric3 * WeightMetric3) + (Metric4 * WeightMetric4) + (Metric5 * WeightMetric5) = SCORE
  • Metrics and WeightMetric should be global values that I want to be able to change at times to accommodate shifting priorities and focuses.

 

I would like to be able to:

STORE global values for Metric and WeigthMetric

CALCULATE a score based on the global values selected for each issue

CHANGE global values as needed

Anyone ever tried that? Anyone a clue if Jira can pull this off?

3 answers

1 vote
Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
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July 29, 2017

Yep, the bit of work I did yesterday was upgrading something similar from JIRA 6 to JIRA 7.   It was a set of scripted fields provided by Script Runner (there are some other add-ons that can provide similar calculated fields, and the option of writing your own fields too).

One difficulty comes up in that there is no easy storage in the off-the-shelf system for "Metrics and WeightMetric should be global values" - we got around that with a script-runnner button that popped a screen where we could store values.  The other probllem with scripted fields is that when you do change a global value, you have to re-index the project to make the numbers re-calculate.

Jacek Darlinski July 29, 2017

Thanks. I definitely would like to reduce changing global values to a minimum and run tests offline first on the right balancing.

Where is the script-runner button storing the values? Directly there in the button? And then you reference those values in the calculated field?

Do you have some code examples? I'm not afraid of finding someone to do the heavy lifting, if I can get to some reasonable auto-calculation of priorities.

0 votes
Samuel Wilkinson June 25, 2019

I'm looking at something similar using our primary add-on, Automation for Jira
https://blog.codebarrel.io/calculated-customfields-and-math-expressions-5eacad80e4e8

0 votes
Steven F Behnke
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July 28, 2017

It requires some effort. You'd at minimum need a script either running on your own service or via a scripting plugin installed in JIRA. 

Jacek Darlinski July 29, 2017

Figured it wouldn't be a wash. 

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