Determining Effort Value - Tactics
While the concept and practice is straightforward, shifting a team from intuitive guesses about the effort needed to complete work to a more deliberate approach for determining effort value (a.k.a. story points) can be a challenge at first. The following approach may help start the process.
Begin by focusing on product backlog items (PBIs) that the team has estimated using their previous approach that are at a 5 or greater. There isn't much to be gained by applying this approach to PBIs estimated at 1 or 2. PBIs that the team knows are a bigger effort but may not be able to articulate why that is the case are good candidates for learning how to apply this technique.
Ask the team how much time it may take to complete a PBI. While I have written before about the importance of excluding time criteria when determining effort values, this can be a good place to start. It’s what teams are most familiar with - for better or worse. Teams usually have no problem throwing out a time: 8 hours, 16 hours, etc.
With the time estimate in hand ask the team:
"If you sit in front of your computer and start the clock, will the PBI be done if you do nothing and the estimated time elapses?"
I would hope the team would answer "No."
Ask the follow up question:
If the passage of time alone won't get the PBI work completed, what will you be doing (actions and behaviors) to complete the work?
The conversation that follows from this question is the basis for determining the effort criteria the team needs to better describe what they will be doing on their way to completing the PBI. The techniques around establishing effort criteria are described in an earlier post.
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