Everyone talks about agile planning, but few think about how hard it really is. The work and its duration depend on many variables, which makes the evaluation of the work and its analysis not so simple.

My practical experience shows that software teams have difficulties not only with estimating the delivery time of a new product or feature but even with planning for their next sprint. This is because the deadline isn’t the most complicated thing when it comes to planning work. What really matters, in fact, is the way we choose to evaluate and plan various project aspects like development time, costs, and risks.

It can be tricky figuring out what to do day by day, but it’s not impossible. This Ultimate Guide about story points will show you how. I hope this article will help a lot to make your work on the next project more organized, so your team can be more effective at using your time and skills to complete the project.

What is a story point?

The story point is an abstract quantity. It's used in project management. So you're asking — why should I care? What is it really?

It's a number that tells all team members how difficult the job is based on the complexities, risks, and efforts involved. Essentially, it's more uncertain than the hour used in agile project management to determine the complexity of implementing a specific user story.

It allows you to evaluate tasks not by the time of completion, as we are used to but based on complexity and uncertainty. This method helps you determine how many features can be implemented within the project.

There are also Agile and Scrum story points.

How is a story point defined? Work with these values begins during the preparation sessions for the product backlog when developers and testers discuss and study the idea. It turns out that the work with story points begins before the sprint.

Why do developers need this?

Because evaluation is very difficult! There are few who disagree with this. And story pointing makes this process easier for developers. Now we are no longer looking at how the clock is ticking, but at the efforts that need to be made to do a certain job.

In colloquial speech and on the Internet, you can find a "relative assessment", it's the same thing.

How to estimate story points like a pro

What does the story point estimation consist of:

• Risk. It is everywhere — the influence of other people, changes in the project’s idea, rearrangements in the team;
• Complexity. This indicator follows from a more subjective assessment of the complexity of the task. However, if you are an experienced specialist, you can accurately assess how difficult it is to create a certain feature;
• Repetition. It follows a little from complexity. A team member may be unfamiliar with a particular task, which slows down the process. If the task for the story points is monotonous and familiar to you, then you do it quickly and well enough.

So, you've got a task list. Great. You're organized. You've got the plan laid out.

This is where the real work begins.

If you're working on an Agile project, you'll have a sprint — a set time frame in which you have to get your tasks done and the product ready for launch. If you're not working on an Agile project, then I'm sorry — you're doing it wrong!