Have you ever heard the term “story points”? Well, it is simply a subjective tool used to measure a feature’s size in relation to other features. In addition, this arbitrary measure is commonly used by Scrum teams to identify the points where the feature has its complexity. This is composed of numbers that ranges from 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or extra small, small, medium, large and extra-large that is used in the estimation of the project’s features. Thus, the most commonly used series in here is the Fibonacci sequence ( 1,2,3,5,8,3,21,34,45).
Moreover, the main importance of story points is that it enables various team to communicate about a certain level or degree on an estimate. This is very much essential for it avoids the conflict that may arise because two opposing programmers have different skills and way of thinking. It actually serves as a unifying mechanism that makes two exactly different estimation of programmers jive and agree with one another.
Since there’s a lot of issues involved in the conventional techniques of having an estimation, still, a lot of team members are trying their best to give an immediate yet accurate estimate in all their projects. For example, in the work field, stakeholders will definitely ask you to deliver your finished projects or even an outline of it with agility for they also need to meet a deadline of the reports of the development of the project. So, to provide a quick solution on this matter, the team discovered a new technique of providing immediate and accurate estimate that will absolutely help you make a right and agile estimate about the detailed features of the project.
Using story point is truly effective for it will not require you to spend long hours just to analyze and make an estimate on the features. Even though you don’t have a wide array of information to estimate the time in creating the framework, still, you can quickly compare the sizes of one feature to another, the same thing goes in estimating the buildings. You can also compare its sizes towards the others for you to make an estimate on how many days will it take for the workers and developers to construct it. The sizes of the building itself can be converted to number through the use of an estimation scale, and here is where the Fibonacci scale works. It provides enough separation between the numbers for the team to avoid confusion over slight differences among the estimates. Thus, through this, the team can easily come up with more precise and accurate estimates.
Using a story point is really different from those classic estimation technique for while they examine and analyze the major word tasks to make an estimate, with SP, the team does not need to examine the task but rather, they only need to compare the sizes and complexity of the project features. Thus, for the team to provide a correct estimate, they use a planning poker wherein a customer or a product owner leads a discussion of the feature, and after that, a question and answer portion is conducted. After the conversation is completed, all the members can hold up the index with their estimates now. If everyone voted for same number, then it’s done. The estimate is already official and recorded. That’s how story points works.
— Slimane Zouggari