…like they’ve made two points of progress on a five-point story but also have discovered that there are eight points remaining. In re-estimating partially finished work, it is entirely possible for the new estimate to exceed the original. But should a team re-estimate at all? Reasons to Re-Estimate There are…

…on the original, larger story. No. Part of the reason for splitting the stories is to understand them better. Team members discuss the story with the product owner. As a product owner clarifies a user story, the team will know more about the work they are to do. That improved…

…and how to use Story Points in estimating. Overview To estimate or not to estimate. There are many different views on the matter. It’s important then to start with why. Why would we spend time estimating in the first place? What is the benefit of that effort? Do all Agile…

…proponent of estimating in story points. (You can get a full overview of how to use story points from reading What Are Story Points.) In all of my training and writing about story points, user stories, planning poker, and agile estimating, I’ve been quite adamant that story points are about…

…face when estimating with story points. We aren’t charging for the training and it will be available until Wednesday, November 24 at 9 p.m. Pacific. To watch all three videos now, sign up here. In this series so far, we’ve looked at solving the following problems: Video #1: Equating Points…

…value” on each user story. They usually do this for either or both of two reasons: to be able to measure the amount of “business value” delivered to the organization, usually graphing this sprint by sprint to be able to prioritize user stories by comparing the business value of each…

…user stories. Each user story has been estimated, most in the range of 3-13 points. Would the following approach be reasonable: Grab a random sample of 40 stories. Break each of those stories into tasks and estimate the tasks. From the task estimates come up with an average number of…

…people understand and explain story points. It's not currently available but you can register here to find out when it's next released. Today’s post introduces the final installment in a free series of training videos tackling common problems teams face when estimating with story points. The training will be available…

…the work. What About Story Points and Velocity? You may have noticed that in the process so far, there has been no role for story points or velocity. Although I still recommend that product backlog items be given quick, high-level estimates in story points, neither story points nor velocity play…

…deadline. Mistake #2: Equating story points to hours The second mistake is when an organization tries to create consistency and predictability by insisting that a uniform definition of story points be adopted by all teams. A popular (but incorrect) way to do this is to force all teams to use…

…face when estimating with story points. The training will be available until Wednesday, April 21 at 9 p.m. Pacific. So far in this series of training videos we’ve looked at: Video #1: Equating Points to Hours Video #2: Getting Hung Up on Perfect Estimates And in this final video I…

…time allocated for putting story point estimates on any user stories that have not yet been estimated. No, I don't think this is a good idea. Keep in mind that we put estimates on product backlog items (which I recommend be user stories) so that: the product backlog can be…

…have separate definitions of story points? One viewer wanted to know how to combine multiple team plans if each team is using a different currency. To answer the question, Brian took a step back to ask whether rolling up all the team plans was even necessary. Sometimes it’s easy to…

…a portion of the story? First, Be Sure the Item Is Still Important When a product backlog item is not finished at the end of an agile sprint, it should first technically be put back onto the product backlog. Work never moves automatically from one sprint to the next. I’m…

After working with story points for a bit, teams often realize they can calculate the team’s cost per point. The team’s product owner can use this cost per point to make decisions. For example, suppose a team’s cost per point is $2,000. Their product owner could then estimate that a…