2+2=4: The Misconception of Story Point Estimation
<p>Story point estimation is widely used in agile software development.</p>
<p>With their numeric nature, story points are commonly summed up to determine the efforts that teams deliver in their sprints.</p>
<p>In this article, I am going to talk about why estimating sprint efforts with story points is a major misconception.</p>
<p>Please note that I am not using the term “sprint velocity" here intentionally. I think sprint velocity itself is a misconception, as it substitutes the velocity (direction and speed) with the speed alone. I have explained this in my article, “The Concept of Sprint Velocity Is Wrong!”</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*EWUJ_0QBUdoCOhgPrLFAPw.jpeg" style="height:260px; width:700px" /></p>
<p>Does it take the same effort to build thirteen tricycles and one truck? Image author unknown.</p>
<h1>What is a story point?</h1>
<p>The common definition of a "story point" is “a unit of measure for expressing an estimate of the overall effort required to fully implement a product backlog item or any other piece of work.”</p>
<p>There is a very important aspect of a story point that is missed in this definition: a story point is a numeric unit of measure.</p>
<h1>Why is the numeric nature of a story point its main downside?</h1>
<p>As story points are numeric, it may feel natural that all the operations that can be done with numbers may be applied directly to story points.</p>
<p>But can we really apply arithmetic operations to story points? I don’t think so. With story points, 2+2 is not always 4.</p>
<p>The effort required to implement the product backlog item is not encapsulated in the item itself. There are many factors that complicate the development of the product backlog item.</p>
<p><a href="https://stanivanov.pro/2-2-4-the-misconception-introduced-by-the-story-point-estimation-4437da746299">Website</a></p>