Story Points

Author

Sohrab Salimi

Reading time

1 Minutes

What Are Story Points?

Story points represent a unit of measure devised to gauge the effort required to execute a user story in Agile project management. Unlike absolute time measures like hours or days, story points adopt a relative sizing approach. This means that their value does not equate to a fixed time duration; instead, it may correspond to abstract concepts like tee-shirt sizes or the Fibonacci Sequence, depending on the methodology employed by the team.

Utilizing Story Points in Project Estimation

The use of story points is crucial in estimating the workload associated with each user story. A popular technique for allotting story points is Planning Poker, a consensus-based estimation method. By utilizing story points, teams can collaboratively reach a consensus on the workload prediction, ensuring everyone has a common understanding of the task's complexity and requirements.

Advantages of Adopting Story Points

Leveraging story points as a common, relative measure of effort offers a multitude of benefits:

Establishes a common language across teams: Story points provide a unified, relative measure of effort that everyone in the team can understand and agree upon.
Enhances time efficiency: By focusing on the size or complexity of the work rather than precise time estimates, teams can save valuable time during the planning phase. This allows for more time to be dedicated to the execution of tasks.

By integrating story points into their workflow, teams can create a more efficient, collaborative, and harmonious work environment, thereby leading to improved project outcomes.

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Sohrab Salimi

Scrum Academy GmbH

Sohrab is a long-standing Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and CEO of the Scrum Academy GmbH based in Cologne. He is a trained medical doctor and worked for Bain & Company as a consultant and as a CIO at SE-Consulting, among others, before founding the Scrum Academy. As a consultant and trainer, he has been supporting companies from a wide range of industries for over a decade on topics related to agile transformation, innovation and organizational development.

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