How does the Effort Field work?

The Effort Field's story point scale

The effort field in Productboard is designed to be flexible, so it accepts any numerical value. However, the auto-suggested values that appear when you select the field are on the story point scale (similar to Fibonacci).

If you'd prefer to define your own scale, or non-numerical scale (t-shirt sizes), you can do so by creating a new custom dropdown field.

Where you can use custom effort fields

Both the native effort field and custom effort fields can be used in the following ways:

• Displayed as columns on the Features board
• Can be accessed in a feature's details (side pane)
• Can be displayed on the Prioritization matrix
• Can be synced with a Jira story points field (custom fields must be numerical, not dropdown)

Where you can only use the native effort field

Only the native effort field can be used in the following ways:

• As the dividend in calculating prioritization scores (value/effort)
• As the dividend in calculating objective scores (value/effort)
• On features displayed on the Roadmap

How to display the effort field on your Feature hierarchy

To display the effort field on your feature hierarchy: 

1. Click  Add columns button.
2. On the sidebar, click on Default fields ().
3. Toggle on the Effort() field.
4. Click Save.

How to display the effort field on a Roadmap.

To display the effort field on a roadmap: 

1. Click the  Configure button on the top right of the roadmap.
2. Toggle on the Effort () field.
3. Click Save.