Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Based on your Jira instance, there could be different ways to access ActionableAgile. Read this document to learn more: Finding ActionableAgile in Jira.

After loading your Jira data into ActionableAgile, there is a section in the chart controls area on the right titled "Workflow Stages." This shows the stages of the work's lifecycle that you defined and mapped Jira statuses during data loading.

You can check and uncheck workflow stages to include or exclude them from the chart calculations. The first selected workflow stage is when Cycle Time begins, and the last selected workflow stage is when Cycle Time ends.

Read more about configuring and mapping the workflow and using the workflow stages control on the Cycle Time Scatterplot Chart.

Analytics was intentionally built without any knowledge of the ways that systems like Jira store data because they vary so much. Our simplifying assumption is that workflow is sequential; an item starts being worked on in the first workflow stage and is complete when it enters the last workflow stage. Analytics therefore calculates when an item is Done based solely on the date that it enters the last column of your workflow, no matter what the column is called and no matter its state or resolution in Jira.

That being said, Analytics does provide you control over which workflow stages you want to consider part of your process. As you may have noticed, there is a control called Workflow Stages in our sidebar which you can use to disable (or enable) workflow stages based on whether you want Analytics to use them for calculations. Effectively, by changing which workflow stage is the last one selected, you can control which items are counted as done. Jira doesn't require an explicit workflow, so our challenge is to map statuses to workflow stages. Once you have done that, you can use all the tools within Analytics to decide what constitutes your workflow (and what constitutes an item being done).

You can see the workflow data that is being imported into Analytics via our Source Data "chart," which can be found in the dropdown menu at the top center of the plugin. The first line shows the column names, and every line after that is an issue/work item and the dates it enters each workflow stage. When you enable workflow stages with the Workflow Stages control, you can use this page to see how your data changes.

If you have a well-defined workflow, ActionableAgile can help you regardless of your methodology. The most important thing is deciding when work starts and when it finishes--that’s all we need to determine the key metrics of Cycle Time, Throughput, and Age. We’ll load other information from Jira about your work and workflow, but starting and finishing work is by far the most important thing.

After your Jira data is loaded into ActionableAgile, you can use the Workflow Stages control to select the parts of your workflow you want to use. Work is considered to be started when it enters the first enabled workflow stage, and it’s done when it enters the last selected stage, so checking and unchecking boxes will change all your metrics. Since the data is already loaded, it’s fast, so feel free to play around with it.

Please note that Jira statuses do not contribute to whether a work item is done or not.

It can work well with Scrum, but it really matters when you start and finish your work items. Many Scrum processes push all their work items into the first workflow stage at the beginning of the sprint, and then push them out of the last workflow stage at the end of the sprint, which makes for irregular predictions. The main thing to remember with the Monte Carlo is that its only input is historical daily throughputs, so you can imagine how the previously described Scrum process would make for an inaccurate Monte Carlo. As long as you understand how the Monte Carlo works and try to only make predictions that make sense with your sprint pattern, it should work for you. Many Scrum teams who use our tool use sprints only for retrospective and planning purposes, not for actual start and stop dates of work items. In our opinion, this is the best of both worlds!

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