Using Story Point Estimation to burn effort

[Hizkeel Khan]

Hi,

I have recently joined a team and they are using both the story points and the story point estimation fields. 
Story points are used to let the team know how effort/complexity/uncertainty is involved which is fine as it is the standard procedure. 

The problem I see is that they are using story points estimation and burning the effort during the sprint. Shouldn't the points burn when the ticket is moved to Done and the sprint is completed. Burning points during the sprint is confusing and strange tbh. 

If a ticket is assigned 8 Story points then the team is burning the points based on the effort they have put even though the ticket is still in progress. 

Please help me to understand it better. It is something common or should I be guiding the team? 

[Stephen_Lugton]

Hi @Hizkeel Khan 

Do you mean that they're setting Story Point and Story Point Estimate set to the same value then they reduce Story Point Estimate as they complete work (or vice versa start with Story Point Estimate at 0 and increase it up to the same value as Story Point as they complete work)?

That is not common, and to an extent it shows that they haven't refined their stories to a granular enough level, i.e. stories that can be completed in a short period of time such as a day.  The closest we get to this is using subtasks for larger stories which are marked as Done when they are completed so we can split the story up into smaller chunks.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Hizkeel Khan 

Adding to Stephen's suggestions...

Those two relative sizing fields are from a design choice by Atlassian:

• the "Story points" field is the original one, and is used for Company-managed projects
• the "Story point estimate" field was added for some odd reason for use exclusively for Team-managed projects

They were never intended to both be used for the issues in a single project.

Kind regards,
Bill

[YY Brother]

Hi @Hizkeel Khan 

Do you mean in a single jira project with 2 estimation fields? It's not a common practice. Usually, we use the system field Story Points, which is enough. Jira sprint burndow chart or velocity chart is based on story points.

Hope it helps,

YY Brother