Understanding story points in Agile

There’s a big difference between effectively prioritizing a task and effectively estimating how long it’ll take to do—just ask my wife about the time I said that fixing the guest bathroom toilet would take “an hour or so.” 

So while the Agile framework can help you prioritize tasks, story points in Agile are what let you know how much you can actually get done. 

Based on my experiences with Agile and lots of conversations with folks who use it every day, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about story points so you can keep everything on track—at work and on the homefront.

Table of contents:

What is Agile?

We can’t dive straight into story points without briefly touching on Agile.

Agile is a project management method that breaks down projects into phases via ranking tasks based on importance and estimated effort. It’s a flexible, collaborative approach that can help teams complete work efficiently, and it holds other popular project frameworks like Scrum and Kanban under its umbrella. While commonly found in software development and engineering applications, anyone can use Agile to achieve their goals.

If you’re still a beginner to the method, I’d recommend reading Zapier’s comprehensive guide on Agile and coming back. If you’re ready to proceed, pass Go, collect your $200, and get ready for story points.

What are story points?

Story points are units of measurement that estimate the effort involved in completing a task, backlog item, or user story in Agile. They typically take three factors into account:

• Complexity: How difficult will it be to complete the task? For example, mowing a lawn is much less complicated than replacing a toilet.

• Risk: How many moving parts or uncertainties are involved in the project that could impose delays? If you need a lawn company to mow your lawn because your mower just bit the dust, there’s a chance they could be late or arrive unprepared.

• Effort: How much work is involved, and how experienced is your team in that task? Replacing a toilet is more complex than mowing a lawn, but if a team has replaced 10 toilets this week, they can probably handle yours. 

Story points vs. hours

Story points and hours are similar methods of tracking project time, but many teams prefer using story points because it can be more precise. Hours don’t account for complexity, risk, or effort, and story points are a more unbiased estimation. 

Another important thing to note is that unlike time-based estimates, story points are relative to each other. For example, let’s say you assign Task A a story point of 2. (Don’t worry about estimations yet—we’ll get into that later.) If you think Task B will take twice as long as Task A to complete, you should assign it a story point of 4. 

Why should Agile teams use story points?

Agile teams should use story points because they give project managers a better understanding of workloads and project timelines. That means:

• Faster planning: When teams have a defined system for estimating tasks, they can plan projects faster and more effectively.

• Better estimations: Since story points are relative to each other, teams can use past Agile tasks as benchmarks for future estimations and drive better resource allocation. 

• Achievable deadlines: When teams have a clear understanding of the relative size of their tasks, they can set more realistic deadlines.

But don’t just take my word for it: Max Williams, founder and CEO of HeroBot, told me, “Story points help us move away from the pressure of estimating tasks in hours or days, which can often feel rigid or limiting. This flexibility allows our team to balance workloads better, ensuring that high-priority but more complex tasks get the necessary attention.”

How to assign story points

Understanding the benefits of story points and how they differ from time estimates is one thing, but you need to be able to do more than nod and smile at a definition—you need a way of assigning story points. 

These are the three most common ways to assign story points:

• Fibonacci sequence: Teams often use the Fibonacci sequence in its traditional form (0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…) or a custom method (0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…) to assign story points. Turns out your high school math teacher was onto something.

• T-shirt sizing: Some teams assign story points based on small, medium, large, and extra large “sizes.”

• Custom methods: Teams may also develop a custom story point method that best suits their needs, like a simple scale of 1-5. 

If your team deals with complex projects—and everyone is mathematically courageous—the Fibonacci scale could work well. If you deal with simpler tasks, T-shirt sizing or another custom method could fit the bill without overwhelming your team.

How to bring Agile story point methodology to your business

Now that we’ve covered why you should be using story points in Agile, let’s dive into how you can successfully use it without giving your team unpleasant flashbacks to algebra class.

1. Educate your team on Agile principles

The first step to getting teamwide Agile buy-in is to educate your team. Start with some preliminary meetings or training sessions to introduce the concept, and be sure to field any questions your staff may have. It may also be a good idea to run through a few hypothetical project management sessions so they can see how Agile works in action before jumping straight into a project. 

2. Define your scale

Once your team is familiar with Agile principles, the next step is to establish a scale for measuring story points. You might try the Fibonacci sequence, T-shirt sizing, or a custom method—scroll back up for details on each of those. 

3. Estimate your story points

When you’re first estimating your story points, you need to align on where tasks fit on your scale. Lissa Poirot, director of content at Joy Wallet, gave me some insight into how she estimates story points with her team:

“The team discusses each story in relation to previous tasks, asking, ‘Is this more or less complex than something we’ve done before?’ A 1 might represent a simple bug fix, while a 5 could be a feature with multiple unknowns. The goal isn’t precision but alignment. Everyone on the team should understand what a point value means within our specific context. That consistency makes it easier to plan sprints and allocate resources effectively.”

A popular way of aligning on story point estimation is with an activity called planning poker. This process—which I’ll cover in more detail below—involves asking team members to estimate story points for a given task. This helps everyone get on the same page and can lead to more accurate planning.

4. Establish a matrix

Around the same time you hold your planning poker meeting—more on that below—you’ll want to establish a story point matrix. These matrices are visual representations of your story point scale that can help your team estimate and understand your system. It typically looks like this:

T-shirt sizing scale example

Fibonacci scale example

5. Start planning poker

A crucial part of establishing Agile story points is planning poker—and I don’t mean flying your team out to an all-expenses paid trip to Vegas. Planning poker is a collaborative estimation technique that helps your team align on how to assign story points. While every team may do it a bit differently, these meetings typically follow a similar framework:

• Before the meeting, create cards with the scale for every participant. For example, if you choose the T-shirt sizing scale, you’ll give everyone small, medium, large, and extra large cards.

• Discuss a task or story with the group. Go into as much detail as possible about the complexity of the task and what the deliverable looks like.

• Have everyone put down a card for what they think the story point should be for that task.

• If there are any discrepancies (for example, if five people put down medium cards and two people put down small cards), discuss it briefly with the group to get everyone on the same page.

And no, this has nothing to do with actual poker. Don’t ask questions.

6. Add story points to your Agile project management software

Only the most gifted project managers—or those who revel in making their lives as miserable as possible—should try to track Agile projects manually. Instead, do yourself a favor and opt for Agile project management software.

Tools like Jira or Asana can aid your Agile efforts and help you get the most out of your newfound strategy. Once you’ve selected your software, add your story points and project details to help you schedule your sprints and create more efficient workflows.

7. Track sprint velocity

In Agile methodology, team leaders don’t typically expect every task to be completed in a designated time—that’s why users rank them by priority. Instead, teams typically hold two-to-four-week working periods called sprints, where they try to get as much done as possible.

So, tracking sprint velocity is just Agile-speak for “monitor how many tasks your team can complete in a two-to-four-week period.” By tracking velocity, you can get a better understanding of your team’s capacity and make more accurate predictions for how many story points you can accomplish in future sprints. 

8. Regularly review and revisit

Your first Agile sprint may be a mess. Heck, your second Agile sprint might be a mess, too. But as you get more familiar with the Agile framework and make more accurate story point estimates, you’ll get a better understanding of tasks and your team’s capabilities. Be sure to regularly take stock of how your sprints are going and identify areas for improvement to keep your team moving in a positive direction.

Common story point challenges

If you’re unfamiliar with Agile, it can be complicated—and confusing to capitalize. Here are the speed bumps you’re likely to face as you get started with story points:

• Inconsistent estimation: Over time, team members may start to interpret the point scale differently. Your project complexity, risk, and effort can shift, too. Regularly assess your story points to help maintain consistency.

• Overcomplication: While the Agile process can be confusing for beginners, don’t get bogged down with trying to assign the perfect point value. Make your best estimate, move on, and assess after your sprint.

• Conflating story points with time estimates: Story points aren’t directly related to project hours. Avoid translating points into specific timeframes, and instead focus on our three guiding principles—complexity, risk, and effort.

Automate your Agile methodology with Zapier

Mastering story points in Agile can bring your project management to new heights. If you want to reach your organizational summit faster, use automation. With Zapier, you can connect your Agile apps to the rest of your tech stack, so you can ditch the manual tracking and focus on what matters. Learn more about how to automate project management and product management with Zapier.

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