Any tricks to using Store Point Estimate as the metric for Issue Estimation method?

[Justin]

👋🏻 G'Day Atlassian Community,

Newbie here trying to work with Sprints in Jira. 
Right now, we use 

- Store Point Estimate: a guess for the effort required to complete a Jira ticket.

- Store Point: the actual effort required to complete the Jira ticket.

I believe that when I'm doing my Sprint Grooming and preparing for the next sprint, the estimations are based of Story Points :(

So this doesn't help us :(

Any way this can be changed?
How are other people doing this (using Story Points)?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Justin 

Can you confirm that your board is referencing a Company Managed project? Get the project Type information from the View All Projects page under the Projects menu.

The native "Story point estimate" field cannot be used here. That field applies to only Team Managed Software projects.

You can, however, add a custom Number field to your issues in the target project, and record your story point estimates in that field. Then that field should be selectable in the Estimation Method options.

[Justin]

@Trudy Claspill 👋🏻 G'Day! Thanks for looking at my question.

> Can you confirm that your board is referencing a Company Managed project

Yes, confirmed. The board is referencing a Company-managed software.

I believe I do have the Number field in the issues of this project:

I wonder if Story Point Estimate was the default with the project? and someone in the team (before me) added the Story Point field?

For example - I don't know why Story Point Estimate is a type 'Story point estimate value' instead of a Number. If it has to be a Number, that is why it's not being shown as an option in the Estimation method drop down box?

[Trudy Claspill]

I believe I do have the Number field in the issues of this project:

The Story point estimate field you are seeing there is the native one that is applicable only to Team Managed projects. The field type for that field is not Number.

Since it is not a Number type field, and is really intended to be used only in Team Managed projects, it will not be available in the Estimation Method options for the board even if the field is added to the Company Managed project's issues.

Story point estimate would not have been the default for a Company Managed project, since by default it is added only to Team Managed projects when they are created. Story Points is the native story point field for Company Managed projects.

As to why Atlassian created this different Story point field just for Team Managed projects and made it a different field type than Number, I have no explanation.

Back to your original requirement, you indicate you want one field for a guess at the effort required (story point estimate) and another field for the actual effort required (story points).

Often in that scenario what you will see people say that the "story points" field is always an estimate of the effort required, and it is intended to give you a general sense of the effort in relative terms; i.e. "small", "medium", "large". It is not intended to document the final, actual effort needed. Instead if you want to know actual effort than you can have the team log actual time spent working on the issues. You can then compare the actual time spent to your story point estimate and use that information to talk about variances and improve your story point estimation process.

You will just as often get feedback from people who are dead set on using story point estimates and actual story points. 

I'm not really interested in debating which method is "better" or "proper".

So, if you really want to pursue having two "points" fields to track estimates vs. actuals, you will need to create a separate Number type of custom field for your estimates, and add that field to your Company Managed project issues. You will not be able to use the native Story point estimate field as the Estimation Method.

[Justin]

Thanks for the detailed reply - really appreciate it.

What I still don't understand is (from your _very first question_) that this is a Company Managed Project. So why is it having some Team Managed Project setting/value?

Unless I incorrectly determined the project was Company Managed?

As to the answer - I'll add a second Number field and use that. We don't (and will never use) the 'time tracking' stuff.

[Trudy Claspill]

Jira does not prevent the field from being added to a Company Managed project. Any Jira Product Administrator could have done that.

To confirm that you have correctly identified the project:

1. Look at an issue where you see the Story point estimate field displayed. Make note of the Issue Key; the AAA-123 identifier for the issue. The part on the left side of the dash is the Project Key.

2. Go to the View All Projects page under the Projects menu.

3. Find your project in that list. Make sure the Project Key from the issue in step1 matches the key of the project in the list 

4. Report the text that appears in the Type column for that project, or provide a screen image of the entry.

[Justin]

Yep, it's CM'd.

[Trudy Claspill]

Then it is probably that another Jira Admin at some point added the Story point estimate field to the issues without fully understanding the ramifications.

If our responses have helped answer your question and lead you to a solution for your problem, please consider clicking on the Accept Answer button to mark your Question as Solved.

[Danut M _StonikByte_]

Hi @Justin,

"Story Points Estimate" is a relatively new field, which Atlassian introduced along with the team-managed projects - a new type of projects in Jira that have their own configuration settings. Not sure why they decided to use a new field instead of using the existing "Story Points" field, which was already available in company-managed projects and has exactly the same meaning. This is causing confusion and complicates things a bit...

If you don't use team managed projects, then stay with the "Story Points" field. Don't use them both for the same project.

Danut.