discovering story points

Discovering story points

@nadiazemskova

Estimates take time

…and they are never precise

Why estimate?

First there were hours

Hours are dependent on individual

Hours are dependent on specialty

Hours are translated into duration

Brook’s law

Wishful thinking

People are bad at estimating time

People are good at comparison

Compare these buildings

1 2

5

3

User story

2 1

Story point

Complexity

Uncertainty

Effort

Planning poker

0

5

10

15

20

25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Velocity

3 x 15 = 45 points

Will have

Might have

Won’t have

3 x 20 = 60 points

Time-based planning

0

40

80

120

160

200

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Scope based planning

Finish here with our best

velocity

1. How many hours are in a story point?

It’s a distribution

2. How to estimate cost?

It’s a range

6 . . 8

. .

x =

3. Whose points are bigger

Only for the same team

Beware of inflation

Establish common baseline

4. How to calibrate team changes

0

10

20

30

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Change of velocity

Team member added

5. How to manage the inflow

0

40

80

120

160

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Burnup chart

Done

Scope

6. How do you get started?

This is a “2”

7. Why are we back to hours?

These are different units

These are different kind of estimates

8. What do you burn during sprint

Hours

Task count

Points

9. What if you don’t have a team?

… plan an imaginary sprint

10. What if you have different skills?

… velocity will help

… or different teams

Estimate effort, derive duration

nadezhda.zemskova@gmail.com nadezhda.zemskova

@nadiazemskova

http://ua.linkedin.com/in/nadiazemskova