Story Points Estimation

Story Points are an estimation tool used by many IT-development teams. Story Points are often recommended in Agile Project Management frameworks such as SCRUM, Kanban or Extreme Programming (XP). The Story Point estimation tool separates itself from conventional tools by being an arbitrary unit of measure that estimates required effort instead of the more tangible and well-known hours. Proponents of the tool argues that Story Points encompass a range of dimensions including, complexity, uncertainty and risks involved in the task. It remains, however, a controversial tool, often because the concept is not well understood, its benefits are abstract and effective use requires prerequisite work as well as medium or long project run-times.

One clear benefit of using Story Points is that it enables the project team to measure the velocity of the team: An hour is always an hour, and in a perfect world the burndown-chart burns with exactly the amount of work-hours you assign to your tasks. This is, of course, almost never the case. Project teams works more efficiently in some periods than other. Overhead also varies through the different phases of the project. By assigning story-points based on effort to tasks you create an effective tool to measure the current speed of the team. An added benefit is that the perceivable metric often creates a common goal to increase the pace.