Estimation beyond estimation

Why do we estimate story or features?

If the answer is to predict how much team can commit in an iteration or release, then the most important aspect of agile estimation is missed.

In agile we believe in relative estimation because the journey to find the story point is more important than getting a number or the exact quantum of work required to complete a story or feature.

Estimation is an opportunity to open a dialog between team members and best technique to ensure that the complete team has same understanding of the story. There are many technique to do story estimation but I prefer planning poker most as I believe this helps best to bring out differences.

During grooming sessions and sprint planning story and features are discussed among team members but still we find gap in implementation, one reason I feel is because different people perceive the same fact in different way based on experience and knowledge. Using planning poker we can ensure that all the team member have similar understanding of the story irrespective of their experience, HOW ?

Suppose a team of 6 member doing estimation and one picks a card of 5 and other 13 then either of below could be a reason :

1.   Difference in experience

2.  Difference in understanding of same story.

3.  Member picking 5 has missed some important technical or functional aspect or one with 13 has thought of doing more than required

4.  Learning curve required for the member picking 13 as he is new to team or technology.

More reasons …....

Whatever may be the case at the end of discussion as a team all will have same understanding of the work and also best person can be choose to do the work.

Estimation is not limited to identifying how much can be delivered by when, so please involve the complete team in estimation and not only few senior members.