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Software Engineering vocabulary · Agile and Team Workflow

Story point

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In software engineering, story point means: A unit that agile teams use to estimate how much effort a task needs, based on its size, complexity and uncertainty rather than on hours.

In Turkish: hikaye puanı, story point

How it is used

Teams often use Fibonacci-like numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13) and play planning poker to agree on them. People say 'that's a three-pointer' or 'that's at least an eight'. Points are meant for planning, not for comparing developers.

Example sentences

  1. I'd give this ticket five story points; the API part isn't clear yet.

  2. We usually finish about 30 story points per sprint.

Common collocations

  • estimate in story points
  • assign story points
  • planning poker
  • points per sprint
  • estimateTo judge roughly how much time or effort a task will take before you start it. As a noun, 'an estimate' is that rough figure.
  • sprintA fixed period, usually one or two weeks, in which a team commits to finishing a chosen set of work items.
  • user storyA short description of a feature from the user's point of view, often written as 'As a [type of user], I want [goal] so that [reason]'.
  • backlogThe ordered list of work a team has not started yet, such as features, bugs and improvements, with the most important items at the top.

More terms: Agile and Team Workflow

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