Summary

Story point estimation is one of the most powerful planning and risk management tools there is in Agile; however, this estimation technique is difficult to master and use. 

The story point estimation workshop will help participants understand everything from the theory of story point estimation, to understanding how teams think and create this estimate, to how we can use story points to better plan.

You will learn advanced techniques in this workshop.

Audience & Learning Objectives

This session is well-suited for individuals who are just learning about story points or those who have been using this estimation for a while but are getting inconsistent results. Since story points can be used in both Scrum and Kanban, team members from either framework will find value in this session.

Scrum Masters, who are likely to facilitate story point estimation, will benefit from this class by learning the teaching and coaching techniques used to help teams understand the purpose and methods for estimation. Scrum Masters also must understand how story points are used for improving risk management and forecasting.

Product Owners, will benefit from this session, by understanding the rationale used in story point estimation by the team. By understanding the team’s perspective better, Product Owners can learn to better trust their teams. Story points are also a powerful planning tool for Product Owners. This session will help them learn how to use story points for improved planning and better product decomposition.

Developers (delivery team members) are the ones who do the story point estimation. For them, it is essential to think beyond “time” and “hours”, and understand that story points are really a composite of risk, complexity and more.

Outline (4-hour session)

• Theory of relative sizing
• Why do we use certain numbers
• Hands-on simple estimation
• The four factors of story points
• Examples of small and large stories
• Story points through real-life scenarios
• What happens when we don’t deconstruct big stories – carryover
• Metrics with story points