How to add up story points of tasks under a user story?

[Darragh Smyth]

We are managing our sprints with a set of user stories, each with a set of tasks linked to them. Each task has a story point estimate associated with it.

I would like to see the sum of the task story points reflected somewhere against the user story. Is this possible?

This would ideally be a sum of the story points, but if that wasn't possible, even simply displaying the task story points in the "Requires" list against each task would help.

Thoughts anyone?

[Scott Theus · Accepted solution]

Hi Darragh,

From a purely Scrum standpoint, I'm not sure if this is the best way to manage your estimates; the developer should be estimating on the task/story level (Note that in Jira the Task and Story issue types are at the same level; a Story is a development effort to "create" something like writing a piece of code while a task is an action to "do" something like installing cabling for a network. It's a small distinction, but important.)

It sounds like you want to use sub-task issue types that are, essentially, smaller pieces of a task or story. For example, a story to develop a bit of code would have sub tasks to write pseudo-code, write the C# code, compile, unit test, etc. The story points at the task/story level represent the overall level of effort to help the product owner with sprint and release planning, while the sub-tasks can be tracked in time estimates via the Original and Remaining Estimate fields to help manage workload at the scrum team level. These fields roll up to the story or task level under Time Tracking.

So...long story short: Sub tasks do not roll story points up to Stories or Tasks, but the Time Tracking fields for Original and Remaining do. 

Hope this helps, 

-Scott 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Part of the reason for not rolling up estimates in Scrum is the binary nature of the delivery.  You go into a sprint announcing that you are going to deliver a set of stories for the product owner/stakeholders.  There is no try, a story is delivered or it is not.  So the points on the sub-task are an irrelevance, they don't matter until the whole story is delivered.