Here are 2 stories…
Story #1
Manager (to team): “I would like you to become more effective!”
Team: “No problem, we’ll just double our story point estimates, then we will complete twice as many points next sprint.”What will the manager answer?
A. “Great! I’ll say that to my boss”
B. “Well, that really don’t make you more effective, only the metrics changed”
Story #2
“In my team, we use estimates. After the sprint, the manager says: “You did not deliver all you promised”. The team feels bad and decides to increase the estimates as a buffer, to ensure they won’t take too much into the next sprint – without telling the manager. The team completes everything the following sprint and the manager is happy. The next sprint the team silently increase their estimates a bit more, only to complete a higher amount of points at the end of the sprint. The SM and the Manager is really impressed because this team now completes more points than any other team.”
Story 1 is one I made up (kind of), and story 2 I was told by a friend of mine, when he wanted my opinion on the topic “Storypoint inflation”.
Putting it as simple as in story 1, most people will believe B is the best answer – without hesitation – and will not accept the suggested solution to just devalue the story points. But story 2 seems to appear more often, even though the only difference compared to story 1, is the speed of story point inflation. So why does it happen? Continue reading “More storypoints completed = More effective?”
Agile Reflections 