What is Story Points?

Recently I held a presentation on this topic, and later produced a blog post about it on my Scrum blog http://scrumftw.blogspot.com. I’m very interested to hear from readers in this forum about the subject.

Traditionally, the aim has been to try to estimate time by looking intensely at a problem (or a task, activity, requirement,…) – so traditionally there’s a lot of effort spent on breakdown, analysis & estimation. But at the same time, we all know that estimating time is very hard and often pretty inaccurate – because software development is research-oriented and there are things that surface only once we start digging in, which then change the picture. We all know this – yet those time estimates tend to become commitments down the line.

I argue that it’s not only the problem (task, activity, requirement,…) that is hard to foretell; the environment where we solve the problem also has a significant effect on the amount of time it will take to complete. And often the environment is much harder to foretell than the problem itself. So, in the end it doesn’t matter how long time you spend analyzing, you will still have a large unknown in the shape of the environment.

The point I want to make is that estimating in Story Points is about recognizing that Time is a result of the Size of a problem solved within a certain Context.
Time = Size x Context

Story Points is a unit for representing Size. This way Context becomes something we can grasp by comparing Size to Time – which is why we measure Velocity

Related posts:

1. Working smarter is better than working harder – How to increase velocity in a Scrum project
2. Percent complete problems
3. Earned Value Reporting – Percent Complete and Percent Spent
4. Estimating the Project
5. Methodology Solution for Project Management Courses