Step-by-step guide
Define your baseline (Reference Stories) as a Team.
- Identify a Story containing a small amount of work and that every team member can understand.
- Describe clearly, what is in place when the story is finished.
- Ensure that all tasks, that have to be done, are listed and understood by all team members.
- Set a points value for that story, based on the descriptions below. Usually the story you pick should be between 2-5 points.
A general guideline: A Story or Task should not take more than one day of work. Otherwise it has to be split in smaller pieces.
Legend
| Backlog Item | Story Points | Level | Explanation | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0,5 | Sleep | We can finish this task during our sleep | ||
| Task | 1 | Childsplay | We need to get up, but actually it is not a lot more work than that | |
| Task | 2 | Peanuts | Not for Children. For experience developers this is no challenge. | |
| Task | 3 | Rocket | This is a sophisticated task. But no rocket science. | |
| Task | 5 | High jump | A task that can be handled with good planning and preparation | |
| Story | 8 | Thermometer | Even experienced developers start sweating when tackling this task | |
| Story | 13 | Fire | Careful - a task complexity where others already burned their fingers | Ensure to have enough people dedicated to handle any type of blockers |
| Feature | 20 | Bullfight | The task is a beast. It can only be tackled with determination and focus | A big task. It often has to be split between several people to properly be handled. It is recommended to break it down into smaller pieces. Only few of such stories should come to a sprint. |
| Feature | 40 | Mammoth | A huge task. It seems impossible to tackle. With a great degree of teamwork, and proper preparation this can be handled. | In really rare occasions should this topic be tackled right away. Figure out how to break it up and make it smaller. Only if you do not see any way how the task could be split into smaller chunks shall this story size come to the sprint. It is unrealistic to be handled of not a full team is dedicated to it. |
| Epic | 100 | Iceberg | From the distance it looks nice, but if you come closer and dig deeper you realize that most of the effort is yet unknown. Very dangerous. I | n your dream. Think the story through, break it down to digestible pieces. This kind of story does not come to a sprint! |