Value engineering report

About this report

Value engineering can be applied to epics, capabilities, and features in Jira Align, with the goal of improving function and lowering costs, or determining if work items are worth building. Be sure to read the Value engineering topic before running this report.

To navigate to this report:

1. Select Portfolios, Solutions, or Programs in the top navigation bar and select the entity you want to view information about.
2. On the sidebar, select Reports in the list of page options.
3. Select Value engineering report; the report displays.

List View

The basic goal of value engineering is to improve efficiency and decrease operating costs through analysis. The Value Engineering report provides four charts to assist with your analysis for epics, capabilities, or features based on the selected work item level. From the Extra Configs menu, you can select a parent work item for epics, capabilities, and features. With this filter on, you will see the report only for the children of the selected parent.

Allocation: estimated and actual value and effort allocations for your work items as a percentage in a horizontal bar graph; use the buttons on the top-right of the chart to toggle between estimates and actuals.

Estimate vs. Actual: estimated and actual value of work items in a vertical bar graph.

Effort vs. Value: effort and value of work items in a quadrant chart to locate quick wins; use the buttons on the top-right of the chart to toggle between estimates and actuals.

• Estimate. The bubble size is based on the work item’s confidence score, which you can view on the Research tab of the work item. The legend on the right side shows the circle size and the relative confidence score. The background on the bottom-right side of the graph highlights every point on the graph where Value positively outweighs Effort.
• Actual. The bubble size is based on the percent complete of accepted features, which you can view on the work item’s details slide-out panel (doughnut chart). The legend on the right side shows the circle size and the relative percentage. The background on the bottom-right side of the graph highlights every point on the graph where Value positively outweighs Effort.

Trend: line graph of the work item's value trends to track value increases and decreases.

The work items that display on the four charts are controlled by toggle switches on the top-left of the page; all work items with applied value engineering in the target portfolio display in a list with toggles to turn on/off for the charts. Work items with monetary outcomes are toggled on by default, as the charts depict financial values; work items with non-monetary outcomes are toggled off by default.

To the left of the work item name are green (yes) and red (no) vote counts regarding continued funding for the work items, as entered by analysts/approvers, set during hypothesis building.

Card View

The charts display in the List view, which is the default view for the page. At the top-left of the page, you can switch to the Card view, which shows the Actual Value (to date) value for each work item via plots on line graphs.

• The Actual Effort/Spend to (to date) values carry over from story points and cost tied to the work item. The graph will populate only when stories are accepted.
• The Actual Value (to date) populates with the updated metric values and is calculated as (Current Metric–Starting Metric) * value of one point. Value of one point = value of outcome of a specific metric / (Target Metric–Starting Metric).

Ideally, the Actual Value should track closely to the Ideal Value line, which represents the Value of Outcome entered in the Hypothesize phase. The Actual Spend line will populate only when stories are accepted.

This view only shows work items in the Validate phase of value engineering. The graphs are the same as under Validate > Estimate vs. Actual for value engineering. The table with the current and target metric, and allocation is updated on the work item’s slide-out panel and is read-only in this view.

Use these graphs to compare your ongoing investments against each other and see which investments are higher in cost versus value than the others in order to make the right investment decisions.

Click the work item's name to edit its details. The card is Blocked if any of the work item's children are blocked.

Prerequisites

1. PI must exist in the system and be tied to a program.
2. Epics must be created and tied to a PI and a theme.
3. Capabilities must be created and tied to a parent.
4. Features must be created and tied to a parent.
5. Value Engineering must be performed on epics, capabilities, or features.

How are report values calculated? 

All report values are calculated using data entered through value engineering. For example, estimated value and effort are captured during the Hypothesis phase, and actual spend and effort are captured at the Validate phase. Refer to your value engineering inputs if you are unsure about report results.

How to interpret this report

Allocation: Measure value and effort allocations, both actual and estimated, to see if work items are over or under-allocated compared to other value-engineered work items in the PI.

Estimate vs. Actual: How close is your value estimate to the actual spend? If your estimates are off significantly, try to pinpoint the discrepancies and make adjustments to provide more accurate estimates in the future.

Effort vs. Value: See how confident stakeholders are in specific investments to make decisions on what to invest in. The fourth quadrant represents work items that have high value and require low effort; these are quick wins that should be leveraged first. Many work items that have high value and require high effort are also worth pursuing if deemed strategic investments.

Trend: Ideally, look for increasing value over time. Work items that are flatlined or losing value may require re-evaluation.