What is a story point?

Remember, points aren’t hours or days, they’re relative complexity.

Relative to what?

Relative to the baseline stories that our team has defined.

But what do you mean by complexity?

Complexity is the amount of work you have to do to complete the story.

So it’s the relative amount of time that the team is going to spend on this story?

Yes, but as it relates to the other stories we have experience with.

Ok - two days.

No, no, no points are relative complexity, not days!

We’ve all heard this in Agile estimation meetings and iteration planning meetings since the beginning of Agile. To get away from the outdated notion of hours and tasks we moved to points and stories. But are they really any different? Could we make them different? Why would we want to? Isn’t the current method working just fine?

Let me answer the last question first: Sure it is. Agile projects are successful every day, moreso than their waterfall uncles of the past. But at the same time, better than waterfall doesn’t seem to be that high of a bar. I wonder if we can do better than Agile.

###What story points do well

###Where story points fall short

###From the customer’s point of view…