Story Estimation
Definition:
Story estimation is a procedure in which the people who are responsible for meeting a business need (a story) analyze and then predict the effort required to deliver the business value. The goal is to provide just enough information that iteration and release planning can maximize the value we deliver in a given time frame, and not necessarily to have predictable development--it is more about identifying the last responsible moments to make various decisions. Story estimation is a way to promote bottom-up scheduling, sign-up, and iteration commitment.
Resources:
Jay Fields "User Story Estimation Techniques"
Don Wells "User Stories"
Steps to Mastery:
Estimate relative effort using Story Points. In this approach a story of roughly average size is chosen and then other stories are assigned point values relative to that one.
Estimate in ideal days or hours. Again, estimates are relative and are not expected to be precise.
Avoid points or ideal time and simply describe stories as small, medium, or large.
Avoid estimating altogether by instead endeavoring to get all stories to roughly the same size by splitting larger ones or combining trivially small ones.
Organizational Support of this Skill:
Product owner(s) and the Whole Team are always available for discussing story scope.