How can you ensure accurate user story estimates for your agile team?

Is this a trick question? Estimates, by definition are not accurate. However, relative story point estimation using Fibonacci numbers is the most accurate way I've found to estimate. When I say accurate, what I mean is that over time, a team that consistently estimates using relative story point estimation with a relative baseline over the period of 3 or more Sprints, will eventually determine roughly how many Story Points that same team can deliver in a given Sprint. So the estimates are only "accurate" when a baseline understanding of a given team's velocity has been established.

In my experience there is no such thing as an accurate user story estimate because there are many factors that need to be considered when team members are providing an estimate. For example: Is every team member aligned on their understanding of the story? Does each of them have exposure to the code base? Are they new to the team? Familiarity with the functionality the story aims to enhance etc... What an estimate does is provide a consensus across the team on how much effort it will take to develop given their current level of familiarity?

Agile is an iterative approach - you start small, learn and adjust as you make progress.There are two pre-dominant ways the story estimates are done - story points & efforts in time unit. Story points considers the complexity & effort required Efforts in time unit - team estimate in amount of time it would take to accomplish the task. So first identity which estimation approach best fits your team. One idea to consider is to have a planning & commit meeting. These mtgs are two weeks apart. In the planning meeting you would identify the tasks & estimate. In the commit meeting you would re-assess the estimates & adjust based on the new learnings. Getting estimate = actual effort is very hard but this approach would help them get closer.

Getting user story estimates that are realistic in an agile team is crucial for successful project planning and delivery. Three key considerations in my experience to reliable estimates are : 1) Using a consistent estimation technique across all user stories 2) Leveraging historical data, and running metric analysis to help to identify patterns and improve estimation accuracy over time. It also aids in identifying potential risks and bottlenecks. 3) Ensure consideration of non-functional requirements, such as performance, security, and scalability. These aspects can significantly impact the effort required and should be factored into the estimation process.

To ensure accurate user story estimates for your agile team, consider the following: 1. Break down user stories into smaller, more manageable tasks. 2. Collaborate closely with the development team to understand the complexity and dependencies of each task. 3. Utilize historical data and past project experiences to inform your estimates. 4. Incorporate buffer time for unexpected challenges or changes. 5. Regularly review and refine estimates based on feedback and progress. 6. Foster open communication and transparency within the team to address any discrepancies or uncertainties. 7. Continuously track and analyze actual versus estimated time to improve future estimations.

This is the most important aspect of story pointing. This is important as individuals participating in the process will have different level of understanding of the application and requirement and each of their inputs clubbed together will help define the right scope of the story. Poker planning with all members of the team inputting story points based on their individual understanding of the scope of work and then the team discussing the reasoning in case the estimates are varying is one of the commonly used practices.

I would modify this slightly. The trouble with most estimating models is they don't factor in individual developer velocity. I like to get points I put from 3-4 developers that are charged to implement and take an average. If you have many user stories the highs and lows typically cancel out and you end up with a mean answer.

The point here is, whole team discusses the requirement, the ask and the acceptance criteria. Product owners discuss what are we trying to solve. Developers discuss the design and implementation details. QA from testing standpoint. Having that understanding of the work and getting the team on page is what is important to get consensus on the estimate to start the work. Goal is to get a gauge for the work and relative understanding of the estimates will help estimate similar story little bit more better next time, so its all about continuous learning and improvement for the team without judging the accuracy of the estimate at that moment.

An Architecture & Design Review Board (ADRB) promotes collaboration by fostering an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and encouraged. They organize regular meetings and workshops where team members from different disciplines can come together to discuss and share ideas. Additionally, the ADRB facilitates open communication channels, ensuring that information flows freely between team members and stakeholders. Through these efforts, the ADRB promotes collaboration and teamwork, enabling the collective expertise of the team to be leveraged effectively in decision-making processes.

The whole team should be involved for very simple reason to reach the consensus. Also, people working on a task should be confident they can finish with pre-agreed quality level and meet the expected specification. If they are cut out from the discussions how can they ask what was considered in the 1 point estimate?

During a weekly Architecture & Design Review Board (ADRB) session, the ADRB would identify a large story by reviewing the backlog and recognizing significant, high-level features or requirements known as epics. Through collaborative discussion and analysis, the ADRB would prioritize these epics for further refinement and decomposition into smaller, more manageable stories.

A user story should never be large! Larger the story greater the risk of scope creep and ambiguity intrusion. Ideally, a user story should represent a manageable unit of work. However, finding the right balance is essential for feasibility and efficacy.

Based on projects I worked as an Architect on in IBM Brazil and other companies in Japan, most of the issues for accurate estimative came from large stories. The scope of execution has a strong relation with the estimation, no matter the estimation technique is applied. My suggestion for user stories is: the smaller the better. The rule for transforming the backlog is simple: Bigger stories can be transformed into Epics and the previous tasks can be rewritten as new stories. For sure, the accuracy of estimation will increase.

Practical Tips for Effective Decomposition: Involve the Team: Collaborate with all stakeholders (devs, testers, product owners) to leverage diverse perspectives and ensure shared understanding. Focus on Deliverable Increment: Break down stories enough to deliver value within a single sprint, but avoid excessive granularity. Maintain Traceability: Ensure each decomposed story contributes to the original user goal and clearly link them back to the larger epic. Use Visual Aids: Employ whiteboards, story maps, or visual tools to communicate the decomposition process and dependencies effectively. Refine and Iterate: Decomposition is an ongoing process. Be prepared to adjust and adapt based on new information and team feedback.

Personally I often ask not to make tasks which are bigger than 3 points which roughly equates to 3 days. The reason for it is simple, on a complex task there is always a scope for it to be extended due to unforeseen complications. Larger tasks require more cognitive load, more things are changed and this creates more scope for mistakes and delays. A smaller set of tasks also means more detailed specification per task, clearer outcome and more confidence in delivery. When breaking down a huge story my approach is usually get a working MVP (minimum viable product). Deploy, review, demo and iterate - which is core of agile process. When this process is broken you get waterfall process with 2 weeks sprints.

Estimates are estimates, can get accurate only to a certain extend not 100%. but to get close few things that can be kept in mind, 1) previous experiences 2) break the stories into smaller stories 3) getting experts on boarded 4) Assessing risks while sizing

Technical governance can help an Agile team review and refine their estimates by providing expertise and oversight during the estimation process. This includes facilitating discussions to identify technical complexities, dependencies, and risks associated with user stories. Additionally, technical governance can offer feedback and recommendations for refining estimates based on past experiences and best practices, ensuring that estimates are accurate and aligned with project objectives.

Bigger user stories to be accomplished within the sprint timelines is always aggressive and goes to backlogs. So best way is to find the requirements for each user story and be sure if it's in line with overall timeline to deliver the entire project. Find if it's too big or too small to fit in. Align the user stories to the business process alignment and establish right teams to get it delivered. Just having good user stories and plan always doesn't work. Right resources are key to deliver.

In the realm of big projects, reviewing and refining estimates is an essential practice that ensures alignment with evolving insights and project dynamics. User story estimation isn't a one-time affair; it's a continuous process necessitating vigilance and adaptability. Throughout the project lifecycle, new information, dependencies, or challenges may emerge, influencing initial estimations. Stakeholder feedback, change requests, or shifting priorities further necessitate regular assessment and adjustment of estimates. Techniques like backlog grooming, re-estimation sessions, or velocity tracking provide frameworks for monitoring and updating estimates as the project progresses.

There is almost never happen a situation when a team (with managers) would know all details about the story to estimate. It's always guestimation and probably if someone really insist on any estimation there should be a process of constant review and refine estimations. I personally don't like estimations that treated as obligations (obviously), 'cause I've seen too many cases when it led to bad relations. Maybe it's better to think about desired positive impact by some date and then design what is absolute minimum, then improvements and the best state. In general it means to have a plan and then adjust it accordingly to team's capability to deliver.

Having a task that overrun by several days or sometimes longer probably happened in every software team. It's worth taking notes during retrospective what caused it, was the task more complicated than initially thought, was the requirement imprecise, was it external dependency. Whatever it is, it's worth incorporating it to the checklist for the future tasks to get more accurate estimates.

Never forget why you estimate: ? Help arbitrate developments to be performed and their priorities ? Help predict releases ? Help adjust project investments For these purposes, there's no need to estimate each and every individual story so accurately. And that's good news since, despite all the techniques mentioned in this article, accuracy is necessarily limited by various parameters, including: ? The possible occurence of unforeseen events ? The variability of productivity of team members Consider: - Using orders of magnitude (Fibonacci or even t-shirt sizes) rather than md - Estimating features, not stories - Adopting NoEstimate if it works in your context Avoid use of estimates to assess productivity of team members.

Start with the recognition that "estimate" and "accurate' don't go together in the same sentence. With that, now identify what is needed to complete the story. This list should include all aspects of people, solution stack(tech, process, functional units), funding and priority of this story in relation to other stories. What do you have committed from the list of what is needed? Now, list out everything that can stop this execution from completion. What is the impact beyond if this is not complete. Be practical while doing the identification exercise. On external dependencies, you know those teams are committed once they have funded you or assigned resources to work with. Keep team informed on progress frequently even if informally also.

Estimating user stories isn't merely a task; it's a journey filled with unexpected twists and turns. One common stumbling block we encounter is the optimism bias, where team members tend to underestimate the complexity of a task due to their enthusiasm. To address this, we've implemented a playful strategy called "Challenge the Optimist" during our sprint planning meetings. This encourages our team to critically assess each user story, reminding us that even seemingly simple tasks can hide complexities like mischievous software gremlins or more likely some unexpected API shortcomings!

Two factors that add the most risk that the estimate will not be close are any dependencies that the story has and the level of specificity in the requirements. Dependencies on other teams will often lead to long deliveries because your team is not in control. Lack of specificity in the acceptance criteria can often mean rework when the owner says “that’s great but not what I intended”.

Accurate estimate is an oxymoron. But for few who are genuinely struggling with this problem needs to understand that the root cause is upstream where dependencies and risks are not accounted for ahead of time. Get your backlog reviewed by architects or tech leads have T-shirt sizes at feature level before thinking stories.

At the end of the day remember that you are talking about estimates - They are by their very definition variable. Trying to come up with "accurate estimates" is just a lack of understanding of how estimates are supposed to work. Estimates can be at different levels Very high, High, Medium, etc. each with their own level of %age variance. E.g. a very high level of estimate can be probably given in an half an hour to an hour but can have as much as 50-60% variance. As you learn more about a piece of work, your estimates will have lesser variance but don't expect them to be exact numbers that your team needs to meet every sprint. Not meeting estimates is actually a trigger for the team (and you) to learn how to improve next time.