Debunking 4 Misconceptions About Story Points
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Peter Tarhanidis, Conrado Morlan, Jen Skrabak, Mario Trentim, Christian Bisson, Yasmina Khelifi, Sree Rao, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, David Wakeman, Ramiro Rodrigues, Wanda Curlee, Lenka Pincot, cyndee miller, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, Marat Oyvetsky
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by Christian Bisson, PMP
Story points, while an essential component of agile, are often misintrepeted.
And that’s a problem, as story points are are a vital unit of measure to help
estimate user stories. And stories, in turn, help teams plan their next sprint.
When they’re misinterpreted, story points lose their effectiveness, and they
can even hurt teams because of how they are used.
For the sake of my examples below, I assume teams use the Fibonacci sequence.
Let’s run through a few common misconceptions:
1. It’s about the complexity.
Some teams will mistakenly focus only on the complexity of the user story,
as measured by the required level of training it takes to complete a given
task. If a task is simple but time-consuming, they will assign it a “1.”
This is misguided because in addition to complexity, story points also take
into account effort and risks.
It’s important to factor in all three of these aspects of user stories to make a
proper estimate.
2. It’s about the business value.
Simply put: no.
When prioritizing their backlogs or even deciding to move forward with a
user story, it’s important for product owners to understand that story points
have nothing to do with business value.
A “13” could bring no value while being costly, and a “1” could be a golden
opportunity (a.k.a. a “quick win”).
Some Product Owners assign a “Business Value” to user stories (for example: A, B, C), although not mandatory, it can be used along with story points to help make key
decisions about priorities.
3. One point is one day of work.
Story points are not days, nor hours—they are a separate unit of measure. If
using “days” to estimate user stories works well for your team, then by all
means keep going, but call them days as opposed to story points to avoid
confusion.
4. Story points can be used to compare teams.
This one is a dangerous trap, especially if used by someone who can
influence people below him or her. It’s important to understand that story
points are relative to each person. Even within a team, it can be a challenge
to align initially until they have a few user stories to compare with.
A “5” can mean something different for Team A than for Team B, so
comparing each team’s velocity gives absolutely no value whatsoever. In
fact, it can mislead you into thinking one team is more efficient than
another, which in turn might result in unjustified negative feedback or
pressure to “have high velocity.”
In Summary
Story points are a tool, and like all tools, they’re only as good as how we use
them. If we fall into common trap, using our story points to plan our sprints
will lead us to disaster. It’s important that every member of the team
understands the concept, and that you also take the time to educate anyone
outside the team who has influence over your work, such as upper
management or customers.
Do you know of any other misconceptions around story points?
Posted
by
Christian Bisson
on: January 26, 2019 01:44 PM |
Permalink
Comments (13)
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Alok Priyadarshi
Project Manager| Tata Consulting Engineers Limited
Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India
Sergio Luis Conte
Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Good points. But let me say that everything can be reduced to the definition of User Stories which is mostly missing and it is the reason of all evils: by definition of their creators (i have the pleasure to work with them) a story point is "a placeholder to talk about". Because of that Story Points is the "worst" method to estimate in terms of the inherent error is high (no matter the method you use the inherent error is there because estimation depends on information). I am using Story Points due to my stakeholders like to use it but it was a hard road to walk to make them understand what we get as the result of our estimations when using story points.
Kevin Coleman
Subject Matter Expert, Author, Speaker and Strategic Advisor| - Insights
Pa, United States
What is interesting is how recent events have and will influence what you talked about here.
John Farlik
Program & Project Management| SPX FLOW
Waxhaw, Nc, United States
Christian,
Thanks for sharing these tenets of misconception. I'm working with a team to flesh out our agile process on a "use case" mobile dev project. You've given me some great points to talk about. I particularly like #'s 2 and 4.
Helping the product owners to understand these points will go a long way toward more agile/iterative mindsets.
RAJESH K L
Project Manager, PMP| Bharat Electronics, Bengaluru, India
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Pench Batta
Enterprise Lean Agile DevOps Coach /SAFe Program Consultant (SPC6)| Capgemini, Inc.
Bentonville, Ar, United States
Absolutely excellent information. Most of the teams have issues in calculating story points. Thanks for sharing!
Vincent Belougne
Consultant, Agile Methodologies| Self-Employed
Petaling Jaya, Selengor, Malaysia
Thanks for sharing your experience and takeaways Christian!
These are all valid points. I like the first point where you suggest to take effort and risk to complexity to the estimation of story points for a user story.
Myself, I am not a big fan of story points, I have used "n-hour focused work person days" (n around 6, to be discussed and agreed with the team) with relative good success in the past. it's a unit that can be understood by most stakeholders, and accepted by the developers. The important is the process by which we reach the estimates, and the understanding that they can be revised as the stories are groomed and broken down further.
Thanks again for sharing and triggering the exchange!
Kevin Korterud
Associate Director | Accenture
New Albany, Oh, United States
Great article! Yes indeed they are to be a measure of relative solution complexity. Use beyond this purpose courts disaster!
Frank Leslie Pinto
Senior Project Manager| Manipal Technologies Limited
Mangalore, Karnataka, India
Got the better understanding on story points. Thanks
Good clarifications as most teams fall prey to one of these misconceptions
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