The 2019 Ron Jeffries’ Post (Extreme Programming, Agile Manifesto) “Story Points Revisited”
Posted by jpluimers on 2024/10/02
Back when my life was in turmoil, lots of interesting things were posted. In the aftermath, I try to catch up with them at a reasonable pace.
This was one by Ron Jeffries (Extreme Programming, Agile Manifesto) blog post [Wayback/Archive] Story Points Revisited.
It is one of the many posts over the last decade or so that tries to make people aware that being agile, or doing extreme programming is vastly different from holding onto the agile process dogmas introduced over the last 2+ decades.
The thing is: these dogmas are exactly why extreme programming and the agile manifesto came into place: blindly following rules is not going to get you anywhere.
Figuring out how your organisation works, then step by step figuring out which parts of extreme programming or agile manifesto fit best for improving your work, implementing them and looping back while keeping a close eye on which practices still work best is the way to go.
Jeffries appologised for sort of having coined the term “story points” (which come from “ideal days”).
I like to say that I may have invented story points, and if I did, I’m sorry now. Let’s explore my current thinking on story points. At least one of us is interested in what I thin
However, these story points are not useless for everybody:
Well, if I did invent story points, I’m probably a little sorry now, but not very sorry. I do think that they are frequently misused and that we can avoid many pitfalls by not using story estimates at all. If they’re not providing great value to your team or company, I’d advise dropping them on the grounds that they are waste. If, on the other hand, you just love them, well, carry on!
What a lot of people miss though by reading the above introduction and conclusion bits, is the important bit in the middle:
Many teams can do without story points and sprints at all by following two directions I will quote from his post:
- I learned it from Neil Killick: slice stories down until they just need a single acceptance test. With a little practice that gets things right down to a good size.
- We want to move as quickly as we can to continuous delivery of value.
With continuous delivery, you likely can do without sprints altogether.
With slicing down to the acceptance test level, you likely can do without story points.
Both presume you have both continuous delivery and a good way of analysing stories down to acceptance test level.
Keeping focus on those parts of your day to day work is the wisest thing to start investing effort in first.
Via [Wayback/Archive] Thread by @svpino on Thread Reader App – Story points is the Emperor’s New Clothes.
--jeroen
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