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In Agile, how should team set story points for a spike or a feature with unknown complexity

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Amir Ali Project Manager| Northbay Solutions Pvt Ltd Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Using Planning Poker, team can story points for those stories which have been groomed well. However, if there is a major unknown specially for a spike, how should team set the story points?
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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Amir -

A spike would generally be time-boxed to explore one or more approaches to tackle an uncertainty, otherwise it's no longer a spike. At the end of the allotted time/effort if a solution is not apparent, that might cause a pivot in direction.

Kiron
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Amir Ali Project Manager| Northbay Solutions Pvt Ltd Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Thanks Kiron Bondale. Very helpful regarding Spike.

What do you suggest regarding features with unknown factor (like changing feature with technical debt or if developer is not aware of existing implementation)?
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1 reply by Kiron Bondale
Mar 28, 2018 7:47 AM
Kiron Bondale
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Amir -

this is exactly what a spike is used for - you time-box an exploration of the uncertainty and come away with a better understanding to help you design and size the "real" work item or at least awareness of what you still don't know.

Kiron
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Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD Senior Project Manager| Infosys Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
You shouldn't assign any points to a Spike, only timebox it. The purpose of story points is to estimate the length of a piece of work to calculate things like velocity and the length of an iteration, release or project. A spike is generally an exploratory exercise so assigning points kind of defeats the purpose and is hard to estimate anyway. Further, it would not yield any useful metrics for velocity because it would/should not be used in velocity measurements to indicate the team's true performance.
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1 reply by Amir Ali
Mar 28, 2018 1:47 PM
Amir Ali
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Thanks Sante.
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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Mar 27, 2018 2:57 PM
Replying to Amir Ali
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Thanks Kiron Bondale. Very helpful regarding Spike.

What do you suggest regarding features with unknown factor (like changing feature with technical debt or if developer is not aware of existing implementation)?
Amir -

this is exactly what a spike is used for - you time-box an exploration of the uncertainty and come away with a better understanding to help you design and size the "real" work item or at least awareness of what you still don't know.

Kiron
...
1 reply by Amir Ali
Mar 28, 2018 1:47 PM
Amir Ali
...
Thanks Kiron
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Amir Ali Project Manager| Northbay Solutions Pvt Ltd Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Mar 28, 2018 7:47 AM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
...
Amir -

this is exactly what a spike is used for - you time-box an exploration of the uncertainty and come away with a better understanding to help you design and size the "real" work item or at least awareness of what you still don't know.

Kiron
Thanks Kiron
avatar
Amir Ali Project Manager| Northbay Solutions Pvt Ltd Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Mar 27, 2018 6:09 PM
Replying to Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
...
You shouldn't assign any points to a Spike, only timebox it. The purpose of story points is to estimate the length of a piece of work to calculate things like velocity and the length of an iteration, release or project. A spike is generally an exploratory exercise so assigning points kind of defeats the purpose and is hard to estimate anyway. Further, it would not yield any useful metrics for velocity because it would/should not be used in velocity measurements to indicate the team's true performance.
Thanks Sante.

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