How do I create a simple Greenhopper Agile burndown chart by story points?

grant luna January 22, 2012

I am new Jira user trying to manage my scrum projects via the Greenhopper agile module. Here is my setup....

- I have 1 user story in a to do status that has 5 story points.

- I have 1 Error-user testing item in a done status that has 10 story points.

-Both are attached to a project and 1 sprint.

How do I display a simple burndown chart by story points for this project? I have tried the charts by "story point" under the Agile/Chart board but none make sense to me? Seems like I should see a simple graphical representation of 10 story points burned and 5 not burned.

5 answers

1 accepted

0 votes
Answer accepted
Adam Saint-Prix
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
February 10, 2012

Sorry for the delay, I didn't see this post until today.

The Start and End dates are input on the statistics section from the Planning Board view. The Sprint Statistics on the right hand navigation menu contain entries for Start and End Dates that you can populate, but these only exist in GreenHopper. If you're inputting versions from the JIRA version management screen, you'll only see you the Release Date to input.

I usually click on the 'Add' button from GH (#1 below) to manage versions at which point you can input start, end and release date at once. If you forget or don't have that detail yet, you can update start and end dates later on directly from the planning board view. Here's a screenshot of what I mean from the GH docs. Look at numbers 10 and 11 below for start and end date. If you hover over the field, a pencil to edit the field info will pop up and you can change the dates.

If those dates aren't populated, I don't think the burndown charts will work because your sprint is not timeboxed as far as GreenHopper is concerned.

Hopefully that helps Grant.

0 votes
Salem Korayem June 13, 2013

We've solved this: during the sprint, the team updates Story Points field on parent issue by asking "how much points are their remaining?" resulting in points reduction or increase. This makes the chart burn down though the issue is still in progress :)

0 votes
Adam Saint-Prix
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
February 16, 2012

I think you might be mixing up the statistics. If you had 83 total story points and 14 issues are done, then the 59 point burndown chart would tell me that those 14 issues represent a total of 59 story points. I'd have to see the chart to say for sure, but that's what it sounds like.

To go one step further, you should have 24 story points and X number of issues outstanding that were not completed in Sprint 1 assuming you started with 83.

To clarify, the burndown would not subtract total story points from number of issues since these are two different statistics.

Just remember not to mix up what values you are looking at. The points burndown only calculates points burned vs. total remaining. Issue count burndown would naturally only look at the issues burned minus any remaining. I think you were subtracting issues burned from total points which is subtracting apples and oranges.

Anyhow, glad the charts are working, hopefully that helps a bit.

0 votes
grant luna February 12, 2012

Thanks Adam, that did the trick to get my Statistics Burndown Chart/Story Points charts are now making more sense. However, the calculation seems to be off. My total story points for my "sprint 1" is 83 and 14 issues have a DONE status. The burndown chart display's 59...not sure why it doesn't display 69 (83-14). I believe that the story points burndown chart is calculated on any item with a DONE status. Not sure...

Thanks, Grant

0 votes
Adam Saint-Prix
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
February 7, 2012

Do you have start and end dates associated with the sprint that is giving you problems? The charts seem to rely heavily on these dates to chart burndown. (or burnup). I've found this to be one of the top reasons why you don't see any data on the charts. Make sure your sprint (version) has a start and end date.

grant luna February 7, 2012

I use the "versions" functionality to group items into sprints. This allows me to see items in a specific sprint on the agile planning board easily. Each version has a release date.

ex.

V1 sprint 1 - Release date = 2/10/2012

V2 sprint 2 - Release date = 2/24/2012

Therefore, I don't know how I associate "start and end dates" as you suggest to my setup? I may have setup my sprints incorrectly in Jira. Any input on setup is appreciated.

thanks, Grant

Suggest an answer

Log in or Sign up to answer
TAGS
AUG Leaders

Atlassian Community Events