The Why behind Story Points
A common complaint amongst Agile Teams is around Story Points. The ambiguity is intended whilst the vast majority of us in Information Technology (IT) are left feeling uneasy. Is it a T-shirt, is it a Fibonacci sequence, is it the size of a chicken or an elephant? I mean, really… What is the point?
The Story is the Task
Figuring out what work can be done to accomplish a goal can be tricky at times, yet anyone who has ever had a project (IT or not) has been faced with this task. It looks something like this:
Feature: A general idea of the goal
Story: Known tasks required to complete the goal
Estimate or Story Point: General guess of VUCK - Volume, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Knowledge (what the VUCK?)
Capacity: Outline how many hours you can allocate towards the goal (in general you would have a Capacity of 8 for a single person over a 10 day work week)
Sprint Plan: Slot the tasks into the working schedule
Feature: Get patio ready for family BBQ
Stories:
Remove any unneeded clutter
Sweep, dust, and wipe down surfaces
Decorate
Time Estimate Scale:
We will use the Fibonacci sequence 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100 for the Time Estimate.
Please Note: The Modified Fibonacci sequence is used from SAFe guidance. See link at the bottom for more information.
Sprint Plan
| Story | Time Estimate |
Day 1 - 5 | Remove clutter | 5 |
Day 6 - 8 | Sweep, dust, and wipe down surfaces | 2 |
Day 9 - 10 | Decorate | 1 |
Capacity | 8 | Total Load: 8 |
With this information a person or team could more confidently understand what is required to complete their work and in general if they can complete it by the time they have allocated (timebox OR Sprint). This sounds great but let's break this down a bit.
The Elusive Time Scale
Story points are elusive until they aren’t. You start out shooting in the dark with the concept of story relativity and over time you see patterns in work, story point values, and other factors that help you get better at pinpointing the estimate more closely to time. Yet our brains don’t work that way. We see time, we see work, and we want to be good at giving an estimate that correlates to time. However, the problem is VUCK.
What the VUCK?
VUCK speaks to Volume, Unknowns, Complexity, and Knowledge.
Volume is asking “how much work is there?”.
Unknowns is asking “How many things are unknown to me about the work?”.
Complexity is asking “How difficult is the work or upkeep of the work or risks the work introduces?”.
Knowledge is asking “do I have a lot or a little knowledge on this topic?”.
When we ask these questions we can look at the list of tasks and apply the smallest value to the one that is the least VUCK. This leads us into Story Point Relativity.
It is all Relative in Relativity
When you have the lowest VUCK story at a value of 1 (based on Fibonacci Sequence) you are then able to compare to every other story and apply a value to them.
Example:
Decorating the patio is a 1 based on VUCK because I don’t plan to decorate at a high volume, I have zero unknowns, the decorations are not complex, and this requires low knowledge. I can then look at the other stories and say sweeping, dusting, and wiping surfaces is a 2 because it is a bit more complex and decluttering is a 5 because of complexity and volume.
Now if you take this scenario and say I am a professional “Patio Setter Upper” or event decorator, I would over time be able to compare these similar tasks and get better at pinpointing the Fibonacci value that most closely resembles the VUCK required to complete the item.
So What Exactly is the Point?
To be a well oiled machine or Agile Team we need to get better at providing estimates quickly without only considering the time on the clock. There are often other factors that play into time or can literally stop time which we should consider. Once we get better at story points we are better at providing predictability to the people who benefit from our work and predictability breeds trust. So the point… is trust. We want to gain the trust from our customers, from coworkers, bosses, and friends.
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