In Jira Agile when should I use a "Story" and when should I use an "Improvement" [closed]

Question

We just started using Jira (with the Jira Agile plugin - Scrum template) for our issue tracker and agile planning.

I am confused about the difference (or intended difference) between story and improvement. All our "stuff" is written as stories. Those stories describe both new functionality and improvements to existing functionality. Should those all be listed as a Story or should the improvements be listed as an Improvement?

I think we should keep things simple and just have Epic, Story, Bug; however, I don't want to hide Improvement and end up with some unintended effects or end up missing useful functionality.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Zenas

Can you tell me how you can work out your velocity if you are using 'story points' for stories but 'time estimates' for bugs and improvements? – Ingressive

We're pretty small so we haven't gotten into that yet -- we just watch the burndown chart by issue count. A new question is probably the best place to find an answer to your question. – Zenas

Answer 1

We use "improvement" for functionality improvements in user stories delivered in previous sprints. In other words we use "story" for new user centric functionality and "improvement" for functionality improvements of current features and non-user centric functionality.

hope it helps

Sacramental

seems reasonable, that is what I did. This way we can look for improvements vs. new features. – Zenas

What Issue Type do you use, by the way, for "non-user centric functionality" ? Task does not seem right to me. Would you use "New Feature" ? – Zucker

Answer 2

Just as an addition to a previous answer I would also suggest to add a new JIRA issue linking e.g. "improvements"-"is improvement of" so that every time you add an improvement you can link it with related story with this link. This will allow you to track how particular functionality was changing over the time when the amount of stories and improvements will significantly increase.

Cutthroat

Answer 3

First, both of them are Jira Issue Types.

The following can be clearly explained from the following text taken directly from an online Atlassian blog post:

"Story: A Story issue type in Jira is used to describe a small, self-contained unit of work that contributes to the completion of an Epic or project. Stories are used to track and manage the implementation of specific features or requirements."

"Example: A story could be something like "As a user, I want to be able to view my account balance." This issue would be assigned a medium or high priority, depending on how important it is to the users."

"Improvement: An Improvement issue type in Jira is used to track and manage changes that improve the functionality, performance, or user experience of a software system or application. Improvements are typically changes that are not related to fixing bugs or adding new features but rather to optimize or enhance existing functionality."

In summary, A Jira User Story is a major issue type focused on new features or items. While a Jira Improvement is an ancillary issue type focused on optimization or enhancing existing items.

Issue Types in Jira Understand the Basics

Relief