Recently, I had a chat with a coworker about the purpose of story pointing in our projects. Our conversation focused on whether it’s appropriate to equate story points directly to the number of days a task might take. I shared my perspective that this practice could undermine the true intent of story points. If we only cared about the duration of tasks, why bother labeling them in story points at all?

This conversation revealed a potential misunderstanding within our team about the role and value of story points. To clarify, I decided to write this post to explain how story points differ fundamentally from time estimates and why focusing on the complexity and effort of tasks, rather than just duration, is vital for efficiency and success. I believe a clearer understanding of story pointing will help our team collaborate more effectively moving forward.

Using story points instead of days in Scrum has several advantages:

1. Focus on Complexity and Effort, Not Time: Story points estimate the complexity, effort, and risk involved in completing a task, not the time it takes. This is helpful because the amount of time it takes to complete a task can vary greatly between team members due to different skill levels, experiences, and work speeds.

2. Fosters Team Collaboration: Since story points are abstract and not time-based, they encourage team discussion and collaboration. Team members share their perspectives and understanding of the task, leading to more accurate estimates and a shared understanding of the work.

3. Better Management of Uncertainty: In software development, tasks can be unpredictable and vary in complexity. Story points allow teams to account for this uncertainty. A task with more unknowns can be given more points, reflecting the higher risk and effort required to deal with these unknowns.

4. Improves Long-Term Planning: Story points help in gauging the team’s velocity (how many points the team can complete in a sprint), which is more stable and predictable over time. This aids in better long-term planning and sprint forecasting.

5. Reduces Anchoring Bias: Estimating in days can lead to anchoring, where the first number spoken out loud influences the subsequent estimates. Story points, being a relative measure and less tangible than time, help reduce this bias.

6. Adapts to Team Changes: As teams mature and their speed changes, the meaning of a ‘day’ of effort can change, but the relative effort captured by story points remains more constant. This allows for more consistent planning as the team evolves.

7. Simplifies Estimation Across Different Tasks: Comparing tasks with different natures (like coding, design, research/spike) is easier with story points, as they provide a common ground for estimation, unlike time, which can be misleading due to varying task nature.

The flexibility in Agile rules allows varied implementations of practices across teams. This flexibility, while a strength of Agile, can make adopting a standardized approach like story points more complex, especially when Scrum Masters have differing views. In such environments, it’s important to have a common understanding of the purpose of story points and how they can help teams collaborate more effectively.

It’s also important to recognize that story points are not without their challenges. New teams might find it difficult to estimate accurately with story points initially, and aligning everyone’s understanding of what a certain number of points signifies can take time. However, these challenges can be overcome with practice and experience.