Time Spent and JIRA Reporting Metrics

[Judy Colonero]

I need to know if any of the reports that JIRA provides will be incorrect if we are using JIRA this way:

Story Point field: data we are entering is .25,.50.1,2,3,4,5,6.....  In the eyes of the team this is considered days.  

Log Time:  pretty normal 30m, 1d, 4d,..... Users are logging time upon closing a story.  

Example:  Story 1 is created with a story point of 4, the time logged upon closure is 3d.

Subtasks are optional if the story is only being done by one person.  

We are not using the 'Original Estimate' or 'Remaining Estimate' fields.  

If we are not using JIRA the way it was created which my understanding is:

• Story Point = effort
• Every Story should have a subtask with the 'Original Estimate' date input. 
• Team should log time daily (so we can obtain the velocity)

Our backlog is filled with stories with the story point field data entered, no original estimate.

Are we hurting our ability to obtain the metrics JIRA provides by not using the Original Estimated field and not creating subtasks?  

[Iago Docando · Accepted solution]

Some considerations:

• No, you don't need to use subtasks. Jira hierarchy include epics > issues or tasks > subtasks but you could use only tasks if you so desire. I find those other issuetypes useful for me but I don't know your system.
• Arguable... "story point = effort" or "story point = day" is not a big deal. I would agree that more perceived effort equals more days needed to complete a given task. The most important thing is that everyone is on the same page.
• Yes, you should estimate your tasks / subtasks before creating your sprint, otherwise you won't know what you can or can't add since there's no tell of how long the sprint would take.
• Yes, you're hurting your hability to obtain metrics (such as velocity) right now if the team only logs time when the task is already finished. Even though this is true, whenever you log time you can select the correct day so... at least this could be somehow useful to analyze sprints data in retrospective. But you should log the work done as soon as it is done, as you should move a task to any "in progress" statusCategory when you start a task. It is exactly the same concept, you want to know what's happening NOW at a glance.

Hope it helps. It was a question, and thus an answer, a bit on the philosophical side, I believe :)

[Judy Colonero]

Thanks Iago.

It sounds like we don't need subtasks but should use the 'original estimate' field when creating the story and it would also behoove us to log time daily.  This should allow us to properly use and benefit from the JIRA reports.   

On our board settings what should the estimation statistics field be set to? 

[Iago Docando]

As I said,  this is a bit philosophical and has more to do with the organizational approach you want to take than anything else. 

You could, for example, log your worked time not daily but every friday instead if you think you would be only checking the overall progress on mondays. This is not optimal in theory but may be perfectly functional.

But doing as you say you'll be fine. No worries ;)

[Judy Colonero]

Thi

[Iago Docando]

I'm startiing to believe that your problem is not really with the capabilities of Jira reporting but rather with the concept of story points.

I hope this lresource can help you https://softwareplant.com/jira-story-point/

Best of luck :)

[Judy Colonero]

Thanks Iago.