History

The history of story pointing technique can be traced back to the early days of Agile software development. In the early 2000s, Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) were gaining popularity among software development teams. These methodologies emphasised iterative development, continuous feedback, and collaboration among team members.
One of the key challenges faced by Agile teams was how to estimate the effort involved in completing user stories, which are short descriptions of a feature or functionality that a user needs. Traditional methods such as time-based estimates were not always effective in Agile environments, where requirements and priorities can change rapidly.
To address this challenge, Agile teams began using relative estimation techniques that focused on the complexity and effort involved in completing a user story compared to other stories. These techniques allowed teams to estimate the effort involved in completing a story without getting bogged down in details or precise time estimates.
One of the earliest forms of relative estimation was Planning Poker, a technique developed by “James Grenning” and popularized by “Mike Cohn” in his book "Agile Estimating and Planning". Planning Poker involved assigning a numerical value to each user story based on its complexity and effort, using a deck of cards with values such as 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on.
Over time, Agile teams began to develop their own variations of Planning Poker, including using different scales such as t-shirt sizes or Fibonacci numbers. The term "story pointing" emerged as a way to describe these relative estimation techniques.
Today, story pointing is a widely used technique in Agile software development, and is often incorporated into Agile methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban, and Lean. While the specific techniques and scales used may vary, the goal remains the same: to help teams estimate the effort involved in completing user stories more accurately and effectively.
Benefits
Accurate Sprint Planning: By using story pointing to estimate the effort involved in completing user stories, the team can plan more accurately for each sprint. They can estimate how many story points they can complete in a sprint and adjust their commitments accordingly.
Better Capacity Management: Story pointing helps teams to manage their capacity more effectively. They can use story points to estimate how much work they can take on in a sprint, and avoid overcommitting or underutilizing their resources.
Improved Transparency: Story pointing promotes transparency and collaboration within the team. It encourages team members to discuss and share their perspectives on each user story, leading to a shared understanding of the work involved.
More Accurate Tracking: Story points provide a way to track the team's progress during development. By comparing the estimated story points with the actual number of story points completed, the team can identify any bottlenecks or inefficiencies in their process.
Continuous Improvement: Story pointing is not an exact science, and the estimates are not meant to be precise. However, by regularly reviewing and refining their estimates, the team can become more accurate and efficient over time.
Disadvantages
Time-consuming: Story pointing can be a time-consuming process, especially when there are many stories to estimate. This can slow down the development process and make it difficult to meet deadlines.
Requires specialised knowledge: Story pointing requires specialised knowledge and experience with agile software development. Team members who are not familiar with the process may struggle to provide accurate estimates.
Subjective: Story pointing relies on the subjective estimates of team members, which can be influenced by factors such as personal biases, experience, and familiarity with the technology being used.
Lack of transparency: Story points are often used as a tool for management to track progress and make decisions about resource allocation. However, because story points are based on subjective estimates, they may not provide a clear picture of the actual progress being made.
Can lead to gaming: In some cases, team members may be tempted to manipulate story point estimates to make themselves or their work appear more valuable or to avoid difficult tasks.
Challenges
Lack of Consistency: Story pointing requires a consistent approach to estimation, and team members may have different ideas about what constitutes a "1" or a "5" on the scale. This can lead to inconsistency in the estimates and difficulty in comparing stories across sprints or teams.
Uncertainty and Risk: Some stories may involve a high degree of uncertainty or risk, making it challenging to estimate the effort involved accurately. In these cases, the team may need to make assumptions or use historical data to arrive at an estimate.
Scope Creep: Story pointing estimates are based on the requirements and scope of each user story, but these can change over time. If the scope of a story expands significantly, the original estimate may no longer be accurate, leading to delays or missed commitments.
Over-reliance on Estimates: Story pointing estimates are not meant to be precise, but some teams may become overly reliant on them, treating them as hard deadlines rather than flexible guidelines.
Estimation Bias: Finally, there is a risk of estimation bias, where team members may be influenced by their own biases or assumptions when estimating story points. This can lead to over- or underestimating the effort involved in completing a story.
Remote teams - Tools to use
There are tools available that can be used for distributed or remote teams:
Planning Poker Tools: There are many online Planning Poker tools available that allow team members to estimate user stories remotely. Some examples include Planning Poker Online, AgilePoker, and ScrumPoker.
Digital Whiteboards: Digital whiteboards such as Miro, Mural, or Conceptboard can be used to facilitate collaborative story pointing sessions with distributed teams. These tools allow team members to work together in real-time and share their estimates.
Collaboration Tools: Collaboration tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet can be used for remote story pointing sessions. These tools provide video conferencing capabilities and allow team members to share their screens and collaborate in real-time.
Conclusion
Overall, story pointing is a useful technique for Agile teams looking to plan, track, and manage their work more effectively. It encourages collaboration, transparency, and continuous improvement, leading to better outcomes for the team and the product, it is important to be aware of its potential disadvantages and to use it judiciously.
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