What are Time estimates (days, hours, minutes)? | Jira Cloud | Atlassian Support (2024)

FAQs

What are Time estimates (days, hours, minutes)? | Jira Cloud | Atlassian Support? ›

What are Time estimates (days, hours, minutes)? Time estimates do exactly what the label says: a unit of estimation that objectively states “this task should take no more than x hours to complete”. Though scrum teams can also use this, time is the only unit of estimation available to kanban teams.

Two story points, for example, equate to a work that will take 2-4 hours, whereas three story points go to issues that will take 4 to 8 hours, and so on. It's a hybrid technique to task estimations that should not be used in most cases. The reason the team applies it is to make all the estimation easier for the client.

In Jira, Working hours per day in Time tracking settings influence the time format display and the meaning of the day in e.g. estimating or sprint planning. (1 day is 8 hour vs. 1 day is 6 hour, etc.)

Time tracking use cases

Some popular use cases of time tracking tools for Jira include the ability to: Record time spent on each issue. Create timesheets or invoices for clients and customers. Generate visualizations on how teams spend their time. Assign work in Jira as necessary based on real-time reporting.

For example, if you have a task estimated at 8 story points, you can estimate that it will take approximately 32 hours to complete (8 story points * 4 hours per story point).

People want an easy answer, such as “one story point = 8.3 hours.” The truth is, though, that the relationship, while real, is not quite that easy to quantify and will vary greatly from team to team. Suppose for some reason you track how long every one-story-point story takes a given team to develop.

Story points are an estimation technique used in Agile project management methodologies to help your team scope the effort required to complete a task. Story points account for factors like task complexity and uncertainty, which makes them more accurate than other estimation techniques such as time-based estimation.

From your team-managed board, select Project settings from the left menu. Find Features on the left menu, and find the feature labeled Estimation. Select whether to use Story points or Time.

In the broad sense of Agile, estimation refers to expert opinions about when a piece of work can be completed based on its complexity. The Agile term “Agile estimation” gained popularity in software development, and it is used to quantify the duration of a given development work item.

More details. Our “EasyTime Automatic Time Tracking for Jira” App records time instantly when tracked events occur, automatically aligning and merging resulting work logs and making it easier to visually review your day.

How do I track hours spent in Jira? ›

These are the simple steps to configure your Jira time tracking settings: Go to 'Settings' → 'Issues' Under 'Issue Features' select 'Time Tracking'

Some teams try to map the story points to hours – for example two story points correspond to a task that will take 2–4 hours, and 3 story points can be mapped to tasks from 4 to 8 hours long, and so on.

Story points are units of measure for expressing an estimate of the overall effort required to fully implement a product backlog item or any other piece of work. Teams assign story points relative to work complexity, the amount of work, and risk or uncertainty.

Often teams map the story points to hours. For instance, two story points conform to a task that would consume 2-4 hours. Similarly, three-story points can be mapped for 4 to 8 hours long tasks.