Today in the garage we need to service our points.
We have been noticing some sloppiness in our relative sizing of stories. So, we used a little bit of magic to get better ignition. Specifically, we borrowed some tools from Magic Estimation to get the cylinders firing a little bit hotter.
So, the first thing to remember is that it is supposed to be "relative sizing" because our brains can do that kind of estimating much better than absolute estimating.
Establish a Baseline
- Establish a baseline story of 3 points. Pick a known story that you can all easily agree is a three-point story.
- Put that story on the whiteboard.
- Do the same thing for a 1 point story.
- Add that story to the whiteboard as well
- Note that you can choose baseline stories of a size that makes sense for the scale you normally work with.
Now it is All Relative
- For each story that you are going to estimate the team needs to compare it to the baseline stories.
- Ask yourself, is this story twice as big as a 1 point story. If so, then it is a 2.
- If the estimate comes back a 3, is that really equivalent to a 1 and a 2 combined?
- For each story compare to the baseline stories to help guide the process
- Surprisingly, this method will actually make the estimations go faster instead of slower.
It is so easy for the development team to build artificial indexes in their heads and lose track of the relative nature of accurate sizing. This little trick is a good way to occasionally reset the teams thinking. It is also a good way to run every sizing exercise.
Remember, if you are going to drive, drive value!
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