Story points & time

The questions about story points that don't go away. Direct answers, with the failure modes named.

Story points are a relative-effort measure. The single biggest failure mode of Planning Poker is the team that starts converting them into hours, days, or person-weeks — at which point the team has thrown away the property the technique exists to give them. The pages below cover the conversion-trap questions, the "should I" questions, and the work types that get systematically under- or over-sized.