How can you convert story points into hours for effective Scrum estimation?

This is a really bad idea for LinkedIn to be putting out there. The whole point of story points is to abstract the estimation discussion away from time. If you want a time based estimate then estimate in time in the first place, but also accept that the estimate will be wrong and can’t be relied on for planning purposes. Story points can be useful as an enabler of conversations to get a common understanding of the user need, the complexity and potential solutions, but nothing more. Someone wants to convert story points into time? Just Say No!

Don't. Story points and hours are different units so it's like converting metres per second to litres. So please don't do this.

This comes up often, but is not recommended. It's crucial to recall that story points in agile are relative measures (a heuristic), assessing task complexity and effort comparatively, not as exact time estimates. Translating story points to hours could oversimplify agile mindset. This risks misinterpreting team velocity, which is more about capacity understanding and forecasting, not precise time tracking. Emphasizing the adaptability offered by story points is often more advantageous. As the saying goes, being approximately right is often better than being precisely wrong. This mindset is vital in agile initiatives, inherently uncertain and variable, focusing on adaptability and team consensus. Thanks for the interesting topic!

You don't have to convert story points into hours as they are different. Story point is purely an estimation of the work, it is a relative measure of the size of the user story. It is inappropriate to convert story points to hours.

Embarking on the surreal quest to convert story points into hours is like trying to turn a pineapple into a bicycle—absurd and destined to fail. Story points are Agile's guiding stars, ethereal and symbolic, meant to capture complexity, uncertainty, and effort. Imagine corralling these elusive entities into the rigid confines of time; it's akin to asking a cat for stock market predictions. This endeavor is a cosmic joke, attempting to translate the poetry of Agile into the soulless sequence of hours. It feels like a wizard's mishap in converting magic potions into mundane formulas. Let's toast to the folly of translating story points into hours, a dance better left to the rhythmically challenged in the grand ball of Agile absurdity.

Instead, convert story points into Sprints. If the typical velocity for a team is V story points and you want to know the amount of time that X story points converts into, divide X/V and round to the nearest whole number. For instance, if the typical velocity is 20 points per sprint and you want to know how long it will take to do 60 story points of work, 60/20 = 3 sprints. That said, that is just an estimate, not a prediction. Working conditions may change during those 3 sprints, the velocity of the team may change due to vacations, sick time, or impediments external to the team. In the end, there is no conversion between story points and hours.

Don’t. Story points don’t equate to hours. Period. They include time as one element, sure, but also include risk, uncertainty, what is known vs unknown, etc. This article is all wrong.

The best way to work out how many hours the work will take is by multiplying the number of emails sent per person against the number of meetings per person, then divide this by the square root of pi, multiple by egg and then flibble dibble wibble edible ploip poasdopk dsdkjmasd and then you have an accurate figure you can use to beat people over the head with when everything falls appart.

This is micromanagement territory and entirely misleading. I like to use this example: If 1 big Story is estimated as a 20, we could deliver 20SP. Slice it into a 2 and a 13 - and you have two smaller, less risky deliverables, but lost 5SP. Slice the big one again, and you end up with an 8 and 2x2. Now, the team is still doing the same work, with more transparency, but reduced 40% of their Story Points. This example should make it abundantly clear that there can be no meaningful relationship between hours and Story Points. Attempts to equate hours to Story Points incentivizes behaviors of reducing transparency and increasing risk. If you're smart - just don't go there.

As I am not a fan of saying "one story point os 1 manhour" or so - on the roadmap level this might be needed. Still I would much more recommend to use on the roadmap the t-shirt sizing with some reference to the story point ranges (e.g. S is 1-3 story points or so on), while these ranges should also be determined for each squad individually. If we decided to do story points estimations, we should do that properly, remembering about all the rules around that - especially the rule that the velocity (so overall number of story points burned by the team within a sprint) is unique for the team and any comparison of velocities between the teams should not happen. Otherwise the whole effort to implement SP estimation is simply wasted.

It's entirely possible to plan with hourly estimates, as long as we all agree that estimates are most likely wrong. If you do this, save yourself the trouble of taking the complicated detour of Story Points. Also, statements like "adjust the deadline of the Sprint" are utterly misleading in and of themselves. This AI generated article spreads so much misconceptions about software development work and Scrum in so little space that we could say, "this is a Gish gallop." It would take an expert hours to address all the misunderstandings, inaccuracies and falsehoods that a single paragraph contains.

The best way to estimate in hours is for the team to spend time polishing their Agile Crystal Ball. The Agile Crystal Ball can be purchased on the scrum inc website for a great price.

If you want to estimate, then use an appropriate yardstick. We don't estimate the height of a mountain in mm. Unless you *can* estimate work to an accuracy of +/- one hour, consistently, then don't claim this level of precision. For small things, use days. For large things, use weeks, Sprints or months. And don't confuse estimates and forecasts. The worst form of forecasting is when you simply sum estimates; this seldom works well for complex work. It's better to form a form a forecast that takes into account the precision to which the team was comfortable estimating, and allowing for the historical variability in delivery..

You dont use hours for scrum estimation or planning. we use story points which are relative complexities. Teams learn by experience and gradually improve at their ability to estimate. Even a long running agile project wouldnt give you estimate in hours.

If you really want to have real hours in estimation model - stop using story points. It is not a must to use story points in SCRUM - you can easily replace the estimation model from SP-based into hour or manday based one - using e.g. PERT equations, specialist knowledge or any other models that exist. The main thing is here, however, if you decide to use any of the estimation models - use it wisely and implement it as a whole... Mixing SP-based model with time-based model never gives good results, as they are based on so much different foundation.

If you want precision and accuracy in estimates at the same time, you need to get out of doing development work. It is DEVELOPMENT work because there are unknown unknowns inherent in it. This implies your best bet is to apply statistical approaches, and work in a way that gives the statistics chance to show their value. Using story points is a half of a statistical approach - it assigns relatively meaningful numbers over which the statistics can be applied ("Velocity" is the other half...). This whole essay is based on an ignorant question, thankfully most of the responders are pointing that out. +1 to Guy Maslen, opefully I'm saying the same without the jargon.

You can’t, at least not with any mathematical validity. Even if you could ignore the very real issues around variability and precision highlighted by others, there isn’t enough data in a sprint for accuracy OR precision of the aggregate. And using sliding windows to get more data assumes performance doesn’t change over time, which is fallacious for numerous reasons. Also, your ultimate precision can never be better on average than your mean variability. Further, your story points probably don’t have statistical correlation to cycle time meaning you’re basing the whole system on an unstable foundation. If you ignore all of this, you’re just doing cargo cult practices masquerading as empirical rigor.

Please stop. Delete this entire article. It’s so bad. Story points are not supposed to be equated to hours. Some people say estimating is a waste of time. Sizing in story points and then converting to hours is certain to be a waste of time.

Again, the entire premise of this line of thinking is flawed. The intent here seems to be to bring more determinism into a non-deterministic process. Attempts to do this are doomed to fail.

If you want better approaches then move away from deterministic estimation entirely and start using stochastic methods, for example monte carlo based forecasting using observed cycle times. Conflating "accuracy" and "precision" in this discussion is also not especially helpful.

Based on my experience, relying solely on team velocity to convert story points into hours may not be effective in predicting the estimated time for a new project. Typically, it is advisable to begin estimating the size of requirements at the epic level. This requires utilizing historical data to determine the relationship between epic story points and the corresponding PBI (Product Backlog Item) story points. For example, the result may indicate that 1 epic story point is roughly equivalent to 5 PBI story points, although this value can vary.

One thing that I have found logically correct is when the project requires a capacity plan. Hours estimation is an effective method to foresee progress and mitigate risks. But not to be done for a complex project use them for simple projects where the solution is predictable and achievable using a proven process.

These assertions only have validity if we agree that "effort hours" is only a measurement that can be made post-hoc. It's not a useful planning parameter. The notion that hours are more accurate (than story points) for "low level planning" is misguided.

Estimate in chicken nuggers. Chicken, chicken nuggers. Chicken, chicken nuggers. Chicken, chicken nuggers. Chicken, chicken nuggers.

Instead of converting story points to hours, consider the following approaches: Use Story Points for Estimation: Continue using story points for estimating the effort required for user stories during sprint planning. This allows for a more flexible and high-level estimation process. Monitor and Adjust Team Velocity: Use story points to calculate team velocity based on completed user stories in each sprint. Over time, the team can learn from experience and refine their understanding of story points.

Level of Effort Estimation (LoEE) is meant, in any form adopted by a team, as a common abstraction to express multifaceted complexity. Complexity means dozens of variables which are either explicitly or implicitly taken into account depending on the team, their seniority and the detail with which tasks at hand are described and understood. Accuracy is the goal, not precision. Mapping any form of LoEE to hours or any kind of “standard” measurement means distorting its very purpose. Answering the question “when will this be done” is very much possible through agile forecasting methods. If LoEE is not able to accurately answer this question, the root cause may be missed recalibration opportunities and / or rushing towards oversimplification.

I understand! You are coming from waterfall and you are not ready to deal with the uncertainties of agile. Let me drop some data and facts at this article. I collected 4 years of data from different teams doing agile and I plot story points against real hours of work. Surprisingly, there is a positive correlation between the two. But, correlation does not imply causality! While you can expect that bigger story point data points are correlated to higher amount of hours the scattered behavior of the distribution just make it impossible to make an educated guess A lot has been theorized about maturity and convergence of these metrics but it remains as unproven null hypothesis in my experience. Bottom line: trust your team! Empower them!

Instead of converting story points to hours, consider emphasizing collaborative team discussions during sprint planning to clarify uncertainties and define acceptance criteria. Encourage the use of historical velocity as a reference point for future estimations, promoting a more consistent and reliable approach. Focus on refining user stories through backlog grooming sessions, breaking down larger tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces. Embrace the essence of story points as a relative measure of complexity, fostering a shared understanding within the team. By steering away from hour conversions, teams can maintain the flexibility and adaptability integral to the agile framework, promoting a more effective and not micro-managed.