Sizing An Agile User Story

by Aaron D-H 27. February 2009 19:58

The correct way to size an agile user story is by assigning each story a "story point" value.  The values assigned are usually taken from the Fibonacci sequence or:  1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.  Story point values are similar  to the concept of "T-Shirt" sizing as follows:

  • Extra-Extra-Small  ~= 1
  • Extra-Small  ~= 2
  • Small ~= 3
  • Medium ~= 5
  • Large ~- 13

The larger values as you go up are a reflection of the uncertainty of the actual amount of effort required to develop the user story.  

When estimating user stories (or as some people like to refer to them, business requirements), it is actually easier, and more accurate, to estimate the size of a user story relative to other stories, than it is to state that a particular user story will take X number hours to complete.   This is because the amount of work a person can complete in an hour varies greatly between people, skill sets, and experience with the technology used.  This gets even more complex in a team environment because team dynamics also affects the overall team performance. 

The most useful thing about estimating with story points is that they can then be used to subsequently calculate the number of story points completed in a development iteration.  In agile terminology this is called the project velocity.   Actual velocity of any development project varies with the size and experience of a team.  Computing velocity helps the team to improve their estimates over the life span of a project.

As a rule-of-thumb when first estimating project velocity I like to figure about 2 points per day per team member, for each team member that spends 100% of their time on the project.

If you are looking for a project managment tool to help with all apects of Agile software development, I would recommend Rally from Rally Software.  Rally is particularly good at dealing with estimation and project velocity.

For more information on how to develop effective user stories I would recommend the book:  

AppiedUserStoreis.FrontCover
User Stories Applied - For Agile Software Development
Written by Mike Cohn
January 2006 Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0-321-20568-5

 A good on-line introduction to user stories can be found at: Writing Good User Stories

 

 

 

 

Tags: ,

Software Engineering | Project Management | Agile

Comments

Add comment


(Will show your Gravatar icon)

  Country flag

biuquote
  • Comment
  • Preview
Loading



About the Author

I'd like to introduce myself to you... My name is Aaron Daisley-Harrison.  I have worked in the software engineering field for a number of years, and as an  Application Architect have created solutions for many industry verticals; worked with both Sun Microsystem and Microsoft technologies; Developed SQL database engines as well as full text search systems; and Knowledge management systems.   I am currently doing contract work out of the Pacific North West and have lately been focusing on Microsoft technologies like SharePoint 2007/2010, WCF, Identity Framework, JQuery, Xml and Silverlight.
[more]


 Digg!

 

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

© Copyright 2009 Aaron G. Daisley-Harrison - All Rights Reserved.