Story Points

What are Story Points?

Story points are an abstract measure of effort required to complete a goal.

The story point scale below reflects the default values suggested by ZenHub with descriptions agreed upon by our team. While story points do not directly equate to time, it is safe to say that when comparing two issues, the issue with more story points will take longer to complete.

Setting the Initial Estimate

The initial estimate is defined during sprint planning by the Product Owner and/or Scrum Master. These estimates are used to gauge how many story points the team is capable of in a sprint based on past performance. These estimates can and should change once the assigned developer has a better understanding of the issue.

1-3 Story Points

• Suitable for bite-sized goals that should take no longer than a few hours to complete.
• The solution to these issues is generally known ahead of time and requires very little research or planning.

Examples

• 1 - A typo in the inline documentation of the plugin needs fixed.
• 2 - A style fix is required to resolve a minor display issue on the front-end donation form.
• 3 - A JS function that was previously working is no longer working, but there is a console error providing some insight.

5 Story Points

• Suitable for mid-sized goals that take no longer than a day to complete.
• The solution may require some research and planning, but the general direction is known.

Example

• 5 - The exporter is not exporting donation data from the selected time frame, but we have a general idea of why it's not working.

8-13 Story Points

• Suitable for more complex goals requiring a full day or more to complete.
• The solution is unknown and requires a proposed solution with feedback from the team before proceeding.
• A single issue should never have an estimate larger than 13. If it does, that is a signal that the issue should be converted to an epic or broken down into smaller issues.

Examples

• 8 - Donation spam is getting through to the database and the exact solution to prevent it is unknown.
• 13 - A new donation form grid shortcode is being introduced.

21-40 Story Points

• Suitable for the most complex multi-part issues requiring multiple days to complete.
• The solution is unknown and requires a proposed solution with feedback from the team before proceeding.
• If an assigned issue has an estimate of 21 or 40, then it should be immediately broken down into smaller issues.
• If breaking down the issue results in more than two related issues, then an epic is required.

Examples

• 21 - Query performance is poor throughout the plugin and requires thorough investigation.
• 40 - The visual form builder needs redesigned from the ground up with a new API and user interface.

Updating the Estimate

The initial estimate should be updated in the following situations:

• The assigned developer feels the initial estimate was inaccurate after learning more about the required solution.
• The assigned developer or Scrum Master finds that multiple rounds of feedback and revisions warrants a higher estimate.
• The assigned developer completes the issue and realizes that the issue was more complex than initially thought.

Estimating Issues with Unknown Complexity

In some cases the complexity of an issue is not known at the time of creation or assignment. In these cases, the issue should begin with 3 story points to account for the required research. The assigned developer must update the estimate once the issue is better understood.