Ah, the story point, that little agile concept that can turn a planning meeting into an epic discussion about the very essence of human existence… or almost. For the uninitiated, the story point is a magic number that development teams use to estimate the amount of work needed to complete a task. But why not just use hours or days, you might ask? Ah, let me tell you a story.

Imagine a development team trying to estimate a task. ‘It’ll take two days,’ says the optimistic (or naive, depending on your point of view) developer. But two days later, you find him fighting a bug as stubborn as a cat that refuses to come out of its box. The result: deadlines are blown, stress is mounting, and everyone’s wondering why they ever believed in the planning Father Christmas.

Introduce story points, the little saviours of agile teams’ mental health. Instead of saying ‘two days’, we say ‘it’s worth 3 story points’. But what does that mean? Well, that’s where the magic happens. Story points don’t measure time, they measure complexity, effort and uncertainty. A 3 might mean understanding a new module, coordinating with another team, or diving into obscure documentation that nobody has read since 2008.

The advantage? The story point is relative. A 3 for a team of code ninjas could be an 8 for a team of Padawans. What counts is internal consistency. And above all, no more ‘banana estimate’ syndrome (yes, you heard me right). ‘Why bananas?’ you might ask. Because that’s like trying to guess how many bananas you need to swim across the Atlantic. We don’t know, but it always seems too few or too many.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

So, the next time you’re at a planning meeting and someone mentions story points, smile. Think of those developers who, instead of drowning in over-optimistic or far-fetched time estimates, use these mysterious points to mark out their path through the sprints. It’s a small step for man, but a big step for agility.

And between you and me, story points also have another significant advantage: they make retrospectives much more interesting. ‘Why was this task an 8 when it appeared to be a 3?’ Ah, here’s a question worthy of the greatest investigations. Sherlock Holmes himself would have loved it.

So, colleagues, let’s raise our coffee (or tea, or even our bottle of energy soda) in honour of story points. Because without them, our planning meetings would be a lot duller… and a lot less agile.