Context

During a team retrospective, we discussed the idea of removing story points. As a team, we have found that they are only sometimes useful and semi-accurate. Overall, our velocity fluctuates, so we do not find story points helpful for planning. Moreover, estimating and discussing the variation in estimates takes up a considerable amount of time.

What we needed to do

When considering the removal of story points we still need to be able to:

• Plan work in the short term e.g. sprint / week
• Provide steer on duration at a high-level e.g. One-pages & EPICS
• Estimate customer work for pricing

How could we replace story points?

To replace story points with something else or to remove estimating altogether needs a clear plan. Below are some suggestions on how we could do this:

In “Sprint”

1. Have a clear goal (sprint or time-based goal?)
2. Make sure stories follow INVEST (without the E)
3. Measure throughput instead of story points

One-Pagers & High-level

1. Continue to provide estimates in sprints / 1 week blocks
2. For customer work - provide this in days / weeks

Do we want to stick to SCRUM?

Open for comments here / ideas and resources of where to look.

Resources for Estimation (no estimates)