Skip to main content

Story Points - When to estimate?

Last post 03:35 am May 30, 2019 by Steve Matthew
4 replies
03:49 pm May 27, 2019

Hello world'o Scrum,

I'm a Scrum newbie with more then 15 yrs. conservative project management experience. My name is Kris from Hamburg Germany.

I would appreciate your insight on the subject "at what time in the sprint, sprint planning process, is the estimation of story points best situated" to be effective? I.e. before pulling? Or after placement in the Sprint Backlog?

If estimated once pulled into the sprint Backlog and then estimated by the dev-team, I can't really see how the dev-team would want to match the story points to the Sprint length/duration? I would think the estimation would need to be finished before pulling items in order to assure possible completion in a proper manner and to align with a known velocity. Is that a good approach angle? Please comment.

Thanks a lot!

Cheers


02:38 am May 28, 2019

The Scrum Guide says: “Product Backlog refinement is the act of adding detail, estimates, and order to items in the Product Backlog.”

Does the team have an understanding of how much refinement must be done for upcoming work to be ready for Sprint Planning?


11:58 am May 29, 2019

I would think the estimation would need to be finished before pulling items in order to assure possible completion in a proper manner and to align with a known velocity. Is that a good approach angle?

True, but are you trying to pull in as much points as the velocity during Sprint Planning?

If so, how would you account for emerging work? And changing capacity?

 


06:16 pm May 29, 2019

The first sprints will help you set the value of "story points". In my project the "story points" represent something close to its difficulty. At the time when we reached 5 sprints it was easier to have the estimate of the story points and hours for each demand. Ensure continuous improvement.


03:35 am May 30, 2019

If estimated once pulled into the sprint Backlog and then estimated by the dev-team, I can't really see how the dev-team would want to match the story points to the Sprint length/duration? I would think the estimation would need to be finished before pulling items in order to assure possible completion in a proper manner and to align with a known velocity. Is that a good approach angle? Please comment.

Kris Hoff, I didn't quite understand the ask here. From what I've understood, yes, the process of refining your Product Backlog Items i.e. estimating (story points), adding detail etc. should happen before you pull work into the Sprint Backlog.

Estimating and refining are ongoing activities and are usually done before Planning, however, estimates are not final until the Development Team actually includes it as part of its forecast for the upcoming Sprint. For example, if the highest ordered item in the Product Backlog is worth 5 story points, but at the time of Planning the Devleopment Team realizes that this work is similar to something that they've already done in the past, then at that point they can reduce the estimate to a lower value, say 2 story points (FYI...this is just an example). 


By posting on our forums you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.

Please note that the first and last name from your Scrum.org member profile will be displayed next to any topic or comment you post on the forums. For privacy concerns, we cannot allow you to post email addresses. All user-submitted content on our Forums may be subject to deletion if it is found to be in violation of our Terms of Use. Scrum.org does not endorse user-submitted content or the content of links to any third-party websites.

Terms of Use

Scrum.org may, at its discretion, remove any post that it deems unsuitable for these forums. Unsuitable post content includes, but is not limited to, Scrum.org Professional-level assessment questions and answers, profanity, insults, racism or sexually explicit content. Using our forum as a platform for the marketing and solicitation of products or services is also prohibited. Forum members who post content deemed unsuitable by Scrum.org may have their access revoked at any time, without warning. Scrum.org may, but is not obliged to, monitor submissions.