Thanks for writing this up. I thought I was alone in feeling some of the pain points you have expressed. Scrum intentionally disengages the estimates from reality with the hopes that it would save developers from schedule pressure. The intent is good, but solution is wrong. It would be more helpful to agree on a system where estimates are updated regularly. It will improve the communication and make us better at estimating over time.
Another problem of estimating in points is that we don't know what a point represents. My current team has taken a decision that points are based on complexity, not time. So, we often get into discussions whether something is complex or time consuming.
Another reason I don't like points is that we often have to go back to review things we pointed before to anchor ourselves at the scale. We have to do that because each one of us has a different imaginary scale in our minds. If we used days estimate instead, we would have none of these issues.
I really think points are pointless. It helps nobody, but creates extra confusion. It makes it hard to communicate with the business, who won't care about your imaginary points but cares about when things will be available.
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Thanks for writing this up. I thought I was alone in feeling some of the pain points you have expressed. Scrum intentionally disengages the estimates from reality with the hopes that it would save developers from schedule pressure. The intent is good, but solution is wrong. It would be more helpful to agree on a system where estimates are updated regularly. It will improve the communication and make us better at estimating over time.
Another problem of estimating in points is that we don't know what a point represents. My current team has taken a decision that points are based on complexity, not time. So, we often get into discussions whether something is complex or time consuming.
Another reason I don't like points is that we often have to go back to review things we pointed before to anchor ourselves at the scale. We have to do that because each one of us has a different imaginary scale in our minds. If we used days estimate instead, we would have none of these issues.
I really think points are pointless. It helps nobody, but creates extra confusion. It makes it hard to communicate with the business, who won't care about your imaginary points but cares about when things will be available.