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The only time I have seen story points effective is when a team does the same type of work over and over. For every other team I have seen it is a waste of tim

The only time I have seen story points effective is when a team does the same type of work over and over. For every other team I have seen it is a waste of time, you either under estimate how many points something is and you get moaned at you are late or you over estimate and you are praised for delivering early. I pretty much caveat every single estimate I give (either time or the made up points) and say "if you want accurate estimates, a good rule of thumb is that I spend 1/4 of the time estimating to planned work - so if I think it will take 4 weeks, I should spend 1 week estimating" - no one ever wants you to do the accurate estimate so when I am moaned at because the estimates are incorrect I refer back to this statement. What is the actual goal? Is it to track a teams progress (track by actual delivered work), is it to know how long something will take (story points are a distraction), is it to see how much work a team can do in a sprint (remove the 1 day planning/retro and you get an extra day to deliver the work), is it to fit into a bigger team of dependencies (story points, again, are a distraction). If you are using story points to avoid figuring out how long something will take, then be brave and figure out how long it will take. (sorry turned a bit ranty!)

mr-wendel 5y ago
Great rant. I especially like the idea of making it clear that estimates cost time to be any good. I've only ever liked pointing when it was the best way to help people see large differences in opinion on how hard something is within the team AND from the person making the request (although they are asked in such a way that they don't know they are basically pointing). When people realize there are frequent, large disparities in expectations it helps hammer home the fact that something is structurally wrong that needs to be addressed. Tech debt? Over-zealous or underwhelming attention to testing? Everyone is unique, but this may help drive discussions that go deeper than being asked "why does everything always take at least twice as long as people think it should?"

mr-wendel 5y ago

Great rant. I especially like the idea of making it clear that estimates cost time to be any good. I've only ever liked pointing when it was the best way to help people see large differences in opinion on how hard something is within the team AND from the person making the request (although they are asked in such a way that they don't know they are basically pointing). When people realize there are frequent, large disparities in expectations it helps hammer home the fact that something is structurally wrong that needs to be addressed. Tech debt? Over-zealous or underwhelming attention to testing? Everyone is unique, but this may help drive discussions that go deeper than being asked "why does everything always take at least twice as long as people think it should?"