The Why button

When working with a multitude of Agile work items, it is easy to forget the value and importance of each one, individually; users may ask themselves, "Why am I building this functionality and what is the value?" To help answer that question, Jira Align provides the Why button at the top of each panel for all major work items (stories, features, epics, capabilities, and themes).

Clicking the Why button activates a slide-out panel for the target work item that displays information on all parent work items, as well as WSJF scoring values, success measurements, and business cases linked to the target.

The summary information provided in the Why panel enables users to understand the context of why they are building something. For example, a developer working on a story can click the Why button to see the full work hierarchy that links the story to the enterprise strategy; product owners and release train engineers that work at the feature level can use the Why panel to understand how a feature rolls up in support of the enterprise strategy.

Messages and conditions

The following messages display within each section when certain conditions are met:

Feature

• FEATURE BENEFIT: XX
  • Displays when the feature's Benefits field contains data, where XX is the entered values. 
• This feature is a MUST HAVE to reach a viable solution. 
  • Displays if the feature's MMF field is set to Yes. 
• This feature is important to our XX.
  • Displays when the feature's Category field has a selected value, where XX is the name of the value. 
• This feature is labeled as XX.
  • Displays when the feature's Business Driver field has a selected value, where XX is the name of the value. 
• This feature has a STRONG EFFORT TO VALUE RATIO of XX%.
  • Displays if the total of all associated child story Value Points is larger than all associated child story Effort Points. When this occurs, the XX% value is calculated as follows: Value Points / Effort Points * 100

Capability

• This capability is a MUST HAVE to reach a viable solution.
  • Displays if the capability's MVP field is set to Yes. 
• This capability has a high STRATEGIC SCORE of XX.
  • Displays if the capability's Strategic Value Score field is higher than 50, where XX is the entered value. 
• This capability has a STRONG EFFORT TO VALUE score of XX%.
  • Displays if the capability's Strategic Value Score field is larger than the capability's Effort SWAG field. When this occurs, the XX% value is calculated as follows: Strategic Value Score / Effort SWAG * 100

Epic

• This epic is a MUST HAVE to reach a viable solution.
  • Displays if the epic's MVP field is set to Yes.
• This epic has a high STRATEGIC SCORE of XX.
  • Displays if the epic's Strategic Value Score field is higher than 50, where XX is the entered value. 
• This epic has a STRONG EFFORT TO VALUE score of XX%.
  • Displays if the epic's Strategic Value Score field is larger than the epic's Effort SWAG field. When this occurs, the XX% value is calculated as follows: Strategic Value Score / Effort SWAG * 100
• This epic ENABLES OUR STRATEGY to XX.
  • Displays if the epic has a parent goal, where XX is the name of the goal. 

Theme

• IS A TOP 10 RANKED item (rank X).
  • Displays if the theme is ranked higher than position #10 on the backlog, where X is the rank.
• Is categorized as XX.
  • Displays when the theme's Category field has a selected value, where XX is the name of the value. 
• This theme ENABLES OUR STRATEGY to XX.
  • Displays if the theme has a parent goal, where XX is the name of the goal.