Key Takeaways
- Backlog Refinement, Sprint & Capacity Planning for Jira keeps the backlog clean and ready so teams plan from reality.
- The app surfaces story-quality signals, such as items missing estimates or acceptance criteria, so a backlog can be made ready before planning.
- Setup happens under Apps then Sprint Planning Configuration, where you choose the boards to use and can enable the Acceptance Criteria check.
- Once the backlog is refined, the sprint is planned against the team’s real capacity and recent velocity, grounding the commitment in what the team can deliver.
- Each board’s Estimation statistic (story points versus issue count) drives the velocity calculation, so it should match how the team estimates.
Backlog Refinement, Sprint & Capacity Planning for Jira helps you keep the backlog clean and ready so teams plan from reality. It surfaces story-quality signals (including acceptance criteria), reads each board’s past velocity, and supports capacity-aware sprint planning, all inside Jira.
1. Configure the app
From Jira’s left sidebar, open Apps → Sprint Planning Configuration (Backlog refinement and Sprint planning). Choose the boards you want to use and, if your team tracks acceptance criteria in a custom field, point the app at that field.
- Select boards: pick the Scrum boards to enable refinement and planning on. The app reads past sprint data and velocity from each board’s Estimation configuration.
- Save (Board Selection): apply the board selection.
- Acceptance Criteria custom field: if you store acceptance criteria in a custom field, search and select it here so the app can flag stories that are missing it. Leave blank if you don’t use one.
- Save (Acceptance Criteria): apply the acceptance-criteria field.
2. Refine the backlog
Open a configured board to refine. The app highlights story quality (for example, items missing estimates or acceptance criteria) so you can get the backlog “ready” before planning. Well-formed stories follow INVEST: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable.
3. Plan with capacity and velocity
Once the backlog is refined, plan the sprint against the team’s real capacity and recent velocity, so the commitment is grounded in what the team can actually deliver rather than wishful thinking.
Tip: set each board’s Estimation statistic (story points vs. issue count) to match how your team estimates. It drives the velocity calculation.
Need help?
Questions or feature requests? Reach the Divim team through our Help Center, or view the listing on the Atlassian Marketplace.