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How do I create a Story without points?


Skip Pletcher (111) | asked Sep 03 '13, 5:17 p.m.

We sometimes create 'stories' in bulk, some of which are epics.  When we are meeting with stakeholders recognizing stories, that is all we do.  The sizing (with planning poker) comes days later.  RTC seems to require a story size when the story is created.  We don't know or even care about the size when creating the story, but the tool seems to require a default numeric value. 

Is there a simple way to create stories now and add points later?

Is there a way to then list (and iteratover) the stories which need points so that at StoryTime/Grooming/Refinement/call-it-what-you-will we can only consider the stories which have not yet been sized? 

Thanks,

Skip

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Dr. Hans-Joachim Pross (1.1k4458) | answered Sep 04 '13, 3:50 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
Not sure to understand your question.
Story Points are not a mandatory field and the default value is unasigned...

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Ralph Schoon commented Sep 04 '13, 4:21 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER

If story points are made required, it would make sense to review the process and only make them required in later states of the lifecycle.


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Eric Jodet (6.3k5111120) | answered Sep 04 '13, 5:23 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
 Hello Skip,
as underlined above, Story Points are not mandatory and default value for the corresponding complexity enumeration is 0 pts.
Not sure if I understand your question / concern correctly, but you may:
1 - add an "Unassigned" value to the complexity enum
2 - make this "Unassigned" value the default value
Upon Story creation, Story points will be defaulted to "Unassigned".
You may then query on Stories where Story points is "Unassigned".

Hope it helps.
Eric.

Comments
Skip Pletcher commented Sep 04 '13, 9:26 a.m.

We are running RTC 4.0.3 with a default Scrum template and Story Points (type Complexity enumeration) are default to 0 when a Story is created.  This causes the progress indicator to begin at 100%.  We can change the default value, but only to a numeric (as Complexity type), so "Unassigned" (which would be ideal) will still appear as a numeric (not string).  Negative values are allowed and can be set as default but still show 100% progress -- on a story which hasn't even been sized, much less completed. 

What we would like to see is Story Points/Complexity treated as null by default and the associated progress indicator at 0%.  These would more accurately represent of the state of those newly created work items.


Ralph Schoon commented Sep 04 '13, 9:58 a.m. | edited Sep 04 '13, 9:59 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER

Yes, it must be a number.

It shows 100% estimated, which I agree does not make sense. You might want to create an enhancement request for that.

Please be aware that the 100% estimated are an accumulation of the story points and potential children.

If you want to be able to distinguish between the data you enter and the real stories with an estimation, you could use a different work item type, or alias with or without story points. When you start estimating it, you could change the type to story.

Another way of working is to assume 0 is no estimation, then you can use queries to find them and you can colorize them in plans.

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