Kanban Velocity Gadget

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https://youtu.be/cJN_3rNWnfg

Overview

This gadget calculates and displays the current average velocity/throughput of the Agile team that is using Kanban based on a Jira issue filter or an Agile board. The calculation can be done by Story Points, Original Time Estimate, Issue Count, or any numerical custom field, and it is based on historical data of every issue. You can also choose to include the sub-tasks in the calculation.

Use this gadget to see how much business value your team delivers over time and how much work is expected to get done in the next period.

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How does it work? For each time interval displayed in the chart, it counts the issues that were done in that time interval and sums up the estimate that each issue had at the end of that time interval. Please note that this gadget does not consider the issues reopened or re-estimated from an interval to another, so the calculated velocity might differ in comparison with the one displayed by the other gadgets, like, for instance, the Release Burnup Burndown Chart gadget.

Done - The total amount of work done in that time interval, calculated in story points, hours or the number of issues according to the gadget's settings.
Velocity - The (rolling) average velocity/throughput calculated as the average of done work on the last time intervals, according to the gadget's settings.

Configuration

The settings of this gadget are divided in 2 tabs:

  • Data tab - contains the required settings of the gadget, such as title or data source

  • More Settings tab - contains the optional settings, such as card colors

Data tab

On this tab you can configure the required settings of the gadget.

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Setting

Description

Setting

Description

Gadget Title

Choose what to display in the title bar of the gadget.

Data source

Select the type of Data Source used by the gadget:

  • The agile Board of your team.

  • A Saved filter representing the scope of your project. Make sure that the specified filter is shared with the users who will also visualize this gadget.

  • A JQL query that returns the issues you want to be processed by the gadget.

Interval Start Date

Specify a date when one (or any) of the time intervals starts. This is only used by the gadget to determine when the time intervals should start (date alignment).

Intervals of

Specify the duration (in weeks) for the time intervals used when calculating and displaying the velocity. If you do Agile development, this should be set according to the length of your sprints or iterations.

Display the chart for the last ? intervals

Specify the number of previous completed time intervals to be displayed in the chart, starting from the most recent.

Include the current (incomplete) interval

Check this if you want the interval of the current day to be displayed. Please keep in mind that the current interval is incomplete and the calculation of the current velocity is impacted accordingly.

Calculate average velocity based on last ? intervals

Specify the number of time intervals to be used when calculating the average velocity. Velocity is calculated as the average of the total SPs done in each of these intervals.

Calculate by

Specify on which criteria the calculation is to be performed. You can choose between:

  • Story Points - the default value; use this if the issues are estimated in Story Points. If the issues are from team-managed projects (aka next-gen projects), select Story Point Estimate instead.

  • Original Time Estimate - use this if you use time estimates; the calculation will be done in hours.

  • Issue Count - use this if you want the calculation to be done by number of issues.

  • Other numerical custom field defined in your Jira instance - pickup the numerical custom field that you use to track or to estimate the issues.

Count also the sub-tasks and their estimate

Check this option if you want the gadget to consider the sub-tasks from the filter and their estimate when doing the calculation.

More Settings tab

On this tab you can configure the optional settings of the gadget.

Setting

Description

Setting

Description

"Done" means

Specify how to consider the issue as "done". "Issue status has category Done" will consider as "done" all the issues with status category "done" (the green-colored statuses from Jira, like Closed, Resolved or Done). If you selected an Agile dashboard at Data, you should choose "Issue is in the last column of the selected board". If you want to be considered as "done" the issues that are in specific statuses, choose "Issue is in one of these statuses" and then select the statuses.

Display horizontal gridlines

Check this option if you want the chart to display gridlines for the vertical axis.

Show data table

Check this option if you want a data table to be displayed along with the chart. The Data tab displays all the time intervals with the issues that affected their velocity. The issues that had zeros on all the columns are not displayed.

Show backlog forecast

Check this option if you want the gadget to display a tab with the current backlog (unresolved issues from the selected board) displayed along with their ETA determined automatically based on the current velocity. Before checking this option, ensure that your backlog is properly ranked, with the most urgent issues at the top of the list.

This setting applies only if the gadget has Data Source of type Board.

Refresh cached data at next display

This gadget uses data caching for faster display, which means that some data resulted after processing are saved and reused next time the gadget is loaded. If you check it, the cache of the gadget will be deleted and recreated at the next reload. This setting is not persistent.

Refresh interval

Choose how often the gadget will refresh automatically.

Colors tab

Setting

Description

Setting

Description

Automatically assign colors

Check this if you want the chart to automatically assign colors for the series.

Custom colors

Select any custom color you want the series to be displayed on by either entering the color's hexadecimal code or picking a color.

You can also use the Copy and Import buttons to copy and import the color configuration to gadgets of the same type.

Related blog articles

The following blog articles provide more information on how to use this gadget.