For Project Managers ·
What you'll accomplish
You'll connect Stepsize AI to your Jira or Linear workspace so it automatically generates plain-language sprint performance reports — summarizing velocity, blockers, technical debt trends, and team progress — without you manually exporting data or building pivot tables in Excel. Every sprint, you'll receive a narrative summary of what happened and why, ready to share with your sponsor or reference in your retrospective.
What you'll need
Go to stepsize.com and click Get started or Try for free. Sign up with your work email or Google account.
Stepsize will ask about your project management tool during onboarding — select Jira or Linear depending on what your team uses.
What you should see: An onboarding flow asking you to connect your project management tool.
Troubleshooting: If your organization uses Jira Server (self-hosted) rather than Jira Cloud, contact Stepsize support — the standard OAuth integration only works with Jira Cloud.
Click Connect Jira and complete the OAuth authorization flow:
What you should see: Your Jira projects listed in the Stepsize dashboard, each showing the boards available for reporting.
Troubleshooting: If your project doesn't appear, check that (a) you're a project member in Jira, and (b) the project uses a Scrum board (not just a Kanban board without sprints). Kanban projects without sprint data will have limited metrics.
In the Stepsize dashboard, click on the project you want to generate reports for. Select the specific board (if a project has multiple boards — common on large programs with sub-teams).
Stepsize will scan the board's sprint history. You'll see a list of completed sprints with their dates.
What you should see: A timeline of past sprints, each showing the sprint name, dates, and a preview of available data (story points completed, issues closed).
Click on the most recently completed sprint and click Generate Report.
Stepsize pulls all Jira data for that sprint — completed issues, incomplete issues carried forward, story points burned, blockers (issues marked as blocked or flagged), and team member contributions — and runs it through its AI model to produce a narrative report.
This takes 30–60 seconds.
What you should see: A structured report with sections including:
Read through the generated report. Check for accuracy:
Click Edit on any section to adjust the narrative. You can also use the Ask AI field to request rewrites:
What you should see: An editable version of each section that accepts your changes and preserves the formatting.
Troubleshooting: If the "key themes" section seems generic or wrong, it likely means your Jira tickets have inconsistent naming or lack proper labels. Improving Jira hygiene (consistent labels, meaningful issue titles) has a direct payoff in Stepsize report quality.
For ongoing use, configure Stepsize to generate a report automatically at the end of each sprint.
Go to Settings → Automated Reports and configure:
What you should see: An automation rule shown in your settings, with a "Next trigger" date aligned to your sprint end date.
Troubleshooting: If reports aren't triggering automatically, check that sprints are being formally closed in Jira (not just left to expire). Stepsize listens for the Jira sprint "Close Sprint" event.
When your sprint review meeting arrives, open the Stepsize report and use it as your agenda:
You no longer need to build a sprint summary slide or manually compile velocity data before the meeting.
After 3–4 sprints of data, go to Reports → Trend Analysis to see multi-sprint patterns:
This data gives you an objective view of team trajectory that's far more credible in a sponsor conversation than anecdotal impressions.
What you should see: Line charts and AI-generated commentary explaining the trends, with suggested actions for persistent issues.
Use these in the Stepsize Ask AI field to customize your generated reports:
Reframe for executive audience:
Rewrite the entire report for a VP-level audience who doesn't know the technical details. Focus on: what was delivered, what was delayed, what risks are emerging, and what decisions leadership might need to make.
Identify root cause for under-delivery:
Based on the carry-forward work and blockers in this sprint, summarize the top 2-3 root causes for incomplete work. What patterns do you see?
Generate retrospective agenda:
Based on this sprint's data, create a 45-minute retrospective agenda. Include: what went well (based on completed work themes), what slowed us down (based on blockers), and 2-3 specific improvement suggestions for next sprint.
Summarize for client update:
Write a 1-paragraph client update for this sprint. Focus on what was delivered that's visible to them, what's coming next sprint, and any risks they should be aware of. Keep it positive but honest.
Prepare sprint planning context:
Based on this sprint's velocity and carry-forward, write a capacity recommendation for next sprint. How many story points should we commit to? What are the priority items to plan for first?