Unlocking the Mystery of Story Points in Custom Software Development

Custom software development is a complex process that requires many things, one being the collaboration between different stakeholders, including software developers, software project managers and of course the client!

For the developer and project manager to estimate the amount of work required to complete a custom software development project, many development teams use a technique called “story points”.

In this blog post, we will explore the concept of “story points” and how they differ from time-based metrics that we all know: hours, days and weeks etc.

“Story points” are a relative measure of output that software developers use to help them estimate the tasks involved in a software creation project.

Instead of measuring time (hours, days and weeks etc), “story points” are used to determine the amount of work required to complete a task.

In a sprint-based development process, such as Scrum, the development team will schedule multiple sprint planning sessions where they will prioritize features that need to be implemented.

Then, they will then work out how many “story points” can be completed within a single sprint.

This is called velocity.

This velocity is used to determine the amount of work that can be completed in the next sprint.

While “story points” are a useful tool for software developers to estimate the effort required to complete a task, they can also be a source of confusion for clients.

Perhaps even our attempt at describing them was confusing 😉

Having said all this, “story points” are not always a reliable estimate, as different developers have varying code skill levels and coding speeds.

So, while “story points” have their limitations, they are a valuable tool for custom software development teams to estimate the effort required to complete a project.

And by providing a relative measure of effort, “story points” ensure that all software developers have a level of involvement in the estimation process, regardless of their skill level.

And because of this businesses, especially those embarking on customer software creation want to know when a task will be completed, how long it will take, and how much it will cost.

That’s what matters.