Project Forecasting
The Project Forecasting feature allows you to define a scope of a project you wish to track, and then measure how you're executing within that project.
To access Project Forecasting, navigate to the Projects tab and then click the Forecasting tab. You should see a screen that looks like this:
To define the scope of a project, you'll first adjust the drop-down menu options on the top left of the page. You'll need to set a time frame for which to display data, and will have the option to then combine PM tool fields and AND and OR filtering to define the project you're interested in.
For Jira customers, the available filter types are:
- Project
- Initiative
- Epic
- Board
- Label
- Field (leads to a drop-down of custom fields)
- Fix Version
- LinearB Team Scope (to pick a team as already scoped in LinearB)
- LinearB Project (to pick a Project as already scoped in LinearB)
For ADO customers the available filter types are:
- Project
- Feature
- Epic
- Tag (leads to a drop-down of tags)
- Field (leads to a drop-down of fields)
Progress over time
Once the filter is set, the graph will adjust to show progress over time. This shows a breakdown of work status over time for the defined filter. In an ideal world, the graph bars should remain relatively the same height, with the “accumulative done” bar increasing over time. If the graph bar height is growing over time as shown in the following screenshot, that’s a sign that the project is increasing in scope—scope creep can be a sign of poorly-defined projects.
Users can switch the view between Story Points and Issues using the links on the left of the graph, and can toggle different statuses on/off in the graph by clicking on them in the graph legend. At the top of the graph, you’ll see an average velocity of issues or story points completed per-week/month (which unit it uses matches which one the user has selected on the graph).
Insights
For driving clear action, you'll want to explore the Insights tab to the right of the graph. Insights will call out notable areas for improvement in the project. By default, we offer these insights:
- Issues stalled in state: In Progress - Shows how many issues have stayed in the In Progress state for a customer-defined number of days or weeks (default 7 days). Stalled issues are an indication that the project is not progressing and is at risk.
- Issues in progress with no git activity - Shows how many issues are In Progress but have not had any git activity (commits, etc.) on the associated branches over the time the graph is set for. This means no development work is being done on the issues, despite them being in progress. If this is high, you may want to implement WorkerB alerts.
- Issues assigned to over-extended developers - Shows how many developers are assigned to more than x in-progress epics (configurable by the user, by default 3). If a dev is overextended, they’re unlikely to complete their work.
- Issues are missing git branch data - Shows how many of the in-progress issues do not have a branch associated with them. If this is high, you may want to implement this gitStream automation.
- Issues are not assigned to a developer - Tracks in-progress issues without an assignee. Issues without an owner are likely to be lost.
- Issues without an estimate - These issues lack a story point estimate, making it hard to estimate workload on the team. If your team does not use story point estimates, you may wish to disable this insight.
To customize these insights, click the gear icon on the Insights panel:
Individual Initiative/Epic/Issue View
Beneath the Progress Over Time and Insights views, you’ll see a list of all of the Initiatives, Epics, or Issues included in the filter view. You can click to filter which unit you want to view—Issues for the most detailed view, and Initiatives for the big-picture look. For each Initiative, Epic, or Issue, the viewer will see who’s assigned, the parent issue (Epic for Issues, Initiative for Epics), and delivery status.
The view can further be filtered by Delivery Status by clicking on To Do , In Progress, or Done above the listed Issues/Epics/Initiatives.
If a user clicks on an Insight, they’ll see the Issues view below to show all of the impacted Issues. This can be used to address project risks. By marrying git and PM tool data, we allow users to very easily follow up on the most pressing risks to their projects.
