Can I get a velocity report using the kanban method/board?

[Marty Johnson]

I have used the velocity report in Agile scrum.  I have recently moved to an area that uses kanban and I don't see the velocity chart.  I understand velocity needs a date range, so I would like story points per week.  I see the control chart and cumulative flow but not the velocity.

[Diwakar Garg]

This is pretty simple for Kanban boards:

project = "Project Name" AND status changed to "Production Installed" DURING (startOfWeek(), endOfWeek()) AND "Story Points" in (1, 2,3,5,8,13)

then download it in excel and select all data from story point coloumn in excel and excel will automatically sum all story points.

thanks,

[Raimundas Juska]

I have just released an app that provides this exact functionality - https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219761/individual-velocity-report-chart-gadget?hosting=cloud&tab=overview

[Stuart Rolland]

Are there any apps that aren't per user that do this? We have about JIRA 4000 users and as far as I know about 20 of us would use this feature, we just work differently to the rest of our org. 

[Raimundas Juska]

Unfortunately, app licenses must be the same size as the Atlassian host license for all paid apps in Atlassian Marketplace.

[chris berry]

Just an idea. I run a googlesheet that connects to the JIRA API, downloads story data, we measure our velocity through to our 'Test Done' phase.

The sheet allows me to define the period of the delivery and counts the cards/story points delivered in the selected time frame. 

This in turn has allowed me to determine the velocity of the team through from when we first started with Jira and report a monthly velocity of the back of that.

This means that as we measure the time from the start date to the test done phase we can measure the points delivered in any time period. 

This allows me to create a Burndown and project forward based on the current velocity.

The sheet is rather complex and has grown overtime to our specific needs, but certainly it is possible to get what you need through this method.

[Jeremy Smith]

@chris berry Mind sharing a copy of your sheet?

[DavidCulp]

@Chris Berry  Hi Chris,  I, too, would like to see a copy of that spreadsheet.  Without any proprietary data, of course.  

I'm looking to do the very same thing and would like to know more about how you did it.

Thanks very much,

davidaculp46@gmail.com

[renee_stella]

@Chris Berry  Hi Chris - I'd like to see what you did with that if at all possible. We're exploring how to do some common metrics across the org. We have some teams that are scrum and some using Kanban, and the ask has been to see velocity and trends. I'm too new to Jira to know what the heck I'm doing other than using the provided reports. 

Thanks in advance! 

~Renee

Renee.Stella@wolterskluwer.com

[chris berry]

Hi all,

I'll need to de-sensitise. So bear with me while I sort that out. Also the fields which we are calculating against are custom fields so you may need to amend to suit your needs...I'll post a link to the sheet shortly

Thanks

C

[renee_stella]

Hi Chris,

I know it's only been a short 10 days since your post but wanted to check in with you to see if you've been able to make any progress on de-sensitizing. I have a meeting Monday, July 8th where we will be talking about everyone's favorite subject...metrics. <- insert sarcasm here.  Anyway, if it's ready...I would like to show them what you've come up with to see if it will meet our needs. Just let me know. 

Thanks!  ~ Renee   (Renee.Stella@wolterskluwer.com) 

[chris berry]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZoRb2HUqRqdRKJpCu18La_yGhIxZbu4J8Q88RRZdLtA/edit#gid=324116335

This is the sheet that I use. Please take a copy, you will need to change the value of the domain held in line 3 of code.js to reflect your installation

Data is downloaded into the backlog sheet

The headings in the sheet determine what is loaded in, if you have different data you wish to load simply change the headings in the sheet and the code will pick that up and load in what you specify

When running the sheet you need to configure the query that you wish to run 

Jira Options>>Configure Jira

This will ask a number of questions, this in turn builds the query

You can also configure the sheet to automatically update every x number of hours.

The burndown charts in this sheet are all calculated using the 'Moved to Testing Done on' Date - this is the point that we record that work is completed. This is a custom field so you may wish to use something else

This works for our installation of Jira Cloud.

thanks

c

[Elliot Gates]

Seems like its been deleted or moved. Any chance of a reupload? 

[Alexander Kent-Braham]

@chris berry Thanks for your help on this. Any chance of a re-upload? It has disappeared

[Chris White]

@chris berry do you have a new link to download this document?

[Taylor Driesell]

@chris berry can you re-share that document please? It would be very much appreciated!

[Valentyn Barmak]

So, clearly, no easy solution for Kanban.

As a workaround, I apply filters. I search for tickets that were estimated "Story Points" = "1", then replace "1" with "2", an so on. Record the numbers and sum them up.

So the detailed steps are the following:

1. Decide on the period. The format is: (2019-01-01, 2019-02-01)

2. Decide which JIRA statuses mean start of work on the ticket / completion of work. For me, statuses are called "In Progress" / "Deployed".

3. Write a Search query in JIRA to get all tickets that were estimated as 1 story point

project = "PROJECT" AND status=Deployed AND status CHANGED during (2019-01-01, 2019-02-01) TO "In Progress" AND "Story Points" = "1"

4. Write down the number of tickets that you got with this search.

• 10 tickets: with Story Points = 1

5. Repeat similar search for other values of Story Points: 2,3,5, whatever you use. Example:

project = "PROJECT" AND status=Deployed AND status CHANGED during (2019-01-01, 2019-02-01) TO "In Progress" AND "Story Points" = "2"

project = "PROJECT" AND status=Deployed AND status CHANGED during (2019-01-01, 2019-02-01) TO "In Progress" AND "Story Points" = "3"

project = "PROJECT" AND status=Deployed AND status CHANGED during (2019-01-01, 2019-02-01) TO "In Progress" AND "Story Points" = "5"

Record your results:

• 14 tickets: with Story Points = 0.5
• 10 tickets: with Story Points = 1
• 8 tickets: with Story Points = 2
• 3 tickets: with Story Points = 3
• 2 ticket: with Story Points = 5
• 0 ticket: with Story Points = 8

6. Now if you calculate the sum, you will have total number of story points accomplished within a period.

For the example above, total Number of Story Points = 14*0.5 + 10*1 + 8*2 + 3*3 + 2*5 = 52 (Story Points).

P.S. You may want to add some automation. I get the queries automatically assembled in Google Sheets: 

You can make a copy of it and set it up to your liking.

[Danut M _StonikByte_]

Hey Valentyn. Try our Great Gadgets add-on. It has a Kanban Velocity gadget that should solve your problem. It is based on a filter.   https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1218777/great-gadgets-for-jira-server?hosting=server&tab=overview

[Danut M _StonikByte_]

Our app Great Gadgets for Jira Server or Great Gadgets for Jira Cloud offers a Kanban Velocity gadget that allows displaying the velocity chart on your Jira dashboard. It is based on a board or filter and fully customizable.

Read also this blog article for more details:  https://blog.stonikbyte.com/2019/11/26/how-to-track-the-team-velocity-in-kanban-with-great-gadgets-app-for-jira/

Danut

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Velocity is calculated based on sprint data such as start and end, what you planned into it and what you managed to complete during the sprint.  Only the "what we did" data is captured in Kanban, so you can't generate a velocity.

Average points solved per week, as you say, is possible, but there's no real reporting on it.  Although I'm sure I saw one in the marketplace that did exactly that a while ago.

[Marty Johnson]

Thanks Nic.  Since Kanban does not have a velocity report, how do you estimate when something will be done?  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Depends on how the estimates are done in the team or what the business wants.  Some places ask a developer to fill in an expected date when they move it to "in progress", others for a time based estimate.  Some ask for something like story points.  Most do some form of estimate (even though Kanban isn't really heavily into estimating), but when they start getting demands for fixed timings, multiple estimates and team load, they move to ScrumBan or Scrum.  (If you want to try Scrumban in JIRA, you usually start with a Scrum board and trim stuff off it to simplify it, so that you get the iteration stuff)

[Tristan Bowman]

@Marty Johnson - I just came to the Atlassian community to ask exactly the question you have asked above. Our Dev team have recently moved from a scrum board to a Kanban board because we're not able to plan in advance to fix our scope for a sprint... Kanban as a concept is working well for us.

BUT - I'm the Product Owner and I want to know when things are going to get done so we still estimate our stories using story points - which I think is fine - I don't see why it should matter whether it's Scrum or Kanban as far as estimating with story points go.

So what I want to know is how many story points do we deliver within x period say every two weeks. As far as I understand that's velocity so I don't quite understand Nic's response where he says you can't generate velocity in a Kanban wall.

So - are you able to give me an update on what you've learnt on this since you made this post? I would have thought that this is VERY common requirement for product owners/Dev teams.

Feel free to also chip-in if I'm missing something @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's the same answer - the velocity calculation is based on "we did x amount of work over period Y".  Kanban does not actively record "period Y".

So you need something to define the period when you are generating a velocity report.

[Tristan Bowman]

Yep - that's what I need. Any ideas on how I might be able to do that?

I guess I feel like wanting to know velocity, even though operating on a Kanban wall, would be a common need for teams so I'm a bit surprised it doesn't come out of the box or am I fundamentally missing something?...

[Hugh Beyer]

Looking at Nic's response--isn't this a really simple thing to do? We have well-known ways of defining time periods. We call them weeks and months. We don't actually need sprints to define a time period.

I'm one more product owner looking for a way to measure velocity--really simple--stories/week or points/week. Any progress on this?

Edit: Just saw the note about the gadget below. Gonna look at that.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, it's an easy thing to do, but you need to be able to define different periods for different users.  The recommended default for scrum is indeed 2 weeks.  Kanban doesn't need the periods and hence doesn't record the period.

[Stuart Rolland]

I have to disagree with your comment "Only the "what we did" data is captured in Kanban, so you can't generate a velocity." 

Isn't realised velocity always based on what we did? I've done Kanban for 15 years and we have always used and tracked velocity, we estimate stories before we do them in story points, then when we restrospect every two weeks we look at the velocity i.e. Story points completed for the last 2 weeks and use that 'score' to inform future plans and estimates or for talking points in our retro.  I used to use Mingle which had this kind of reporting built in, now I have to export to a spreadsheet to do the same thing with Jira. If you think about where Kanban came from, the auto industry, they also track their velocity in the same way e.g. How many cars did we make in the last week, did it go up or down, what did we do well or not? So Kanban practitioners were doing this before SCRUM was even invented.

[Corrine Ptacek]

@Chris Berry - any chance you can re upload your sheet - you solution may solve my problem as we use Kanban to make things easier for our team but management wants metrics

[Danut M _StonikByte_]

Our Great Gadgets add-on offers a Kanban Velocity gadget that allows displaying the velocity chart on your Jira dashboard.