Story Point planned vs actual

[Jason D]

Hello,
JIRA Novice here. 
When our squad is in Sprint Planning we have allocated a story point for each user story.  After the sprint is complete, during our Sprint Retrospective, we reassess the story point allocated for the user story and decide if it should have been pointed higher or lower.  This is so we can see if we estimated the effort of work correctly, and to take this knowledge into future sprint planning for better efficiencies . Is there a way in JIRA to record and do a comparison of a user story story point of what was allocated during our Sprint Planning v Sprint Retrospective?

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jason D , you could create a custom field, e.g SP Actual and record your new #. The question really comes down to how will you use this info. To me, simply doing this within in Confluence, e.g. a table showing the issue / estimate / actual, would suffice. Obviously, the goal is to improve your estimations, and I think that will happen naturally with the team following a solid scrum process. The fact that you are actually doing this during retrospectives is a huge step in that direction.

[Jason D]

Hi @Jack Brickey
Thanks for the swift response.  We have considered doing a table in Confluence, but we were looking to see what the capability is to record and process this in JIRA.  Will look to amend our Retrospective report.

[John Dorian]

Hi @Jack Brickey - can you share an example of the table in confluence and how to create it?

Thank you

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @John Dorian , I don't have an example as it was just an idea, not something I employ in my process. However, a simple table that would include the following columns seems appropriate:

• Jira issue key summary
• Planned Story points
• reassessed Story points
• comments on why the delta in SP

[John Elder]

I very much agree with Jack's idea of a new, custom field... since that would be the "cleanest" way to implement and track something like this.  Then you could simply create a filter, add it to a dashboard, and display the data for conversation and tracking it for long-term reporting, etc.

Jira does offer a 'native' function that you could also take advantage of, though it depends on how you define it within your organization.  You are able to edit/change the story points value for an issue during the sprint, and Jira will see it as a scope increase (so the burndown will be affected, but perhaps logically so) and the sprint report at the end will show the change in story points.  This, I don't believe, is a filterable or reportable way of tracking original vs. actual (Jack's idea is best for that) but this makes it on a native Jira report, you can see the change in story points value sprint after sprint.  Just a thought to consider...  :)  Best of luck!

[Jason D]

Thanks @John Elder  for the follow up, confirming Jack's idea and the insight that to the burndown chart seeing the story point change.  Will look into this and see what we can incorporate as a squad.