When I talk to people external to my team, I use this algorithm: * Estimate in programmer days * Round up * Add 20% * Times by two * Increment the unit (days=>weeks, weeks=>months, months=>years)
Honestly, I like to use guesses at how many half-days would be required as the basis for story points. This is consistently inaccurate, but work well as a shared reference point. I have previously used the Cohn Scale (0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100), but it takes a while to have a shared expectation of what each number means. Explanation here: http://www.scrum-breakfast.com/2008/02/explaining-story-points-to-management.html This is a good article on the FogBugz technique of Evidence Based Scheduling: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/26.html Good luck, Richard On Monday January 9 2012 22:08:38 Wade Preston Shearer <[email protected]> wrote: > Anyone have any opinion or advice on various point scales for estimating > software development time? I've always done it in hours/days, but am going to > try and have my team switch to a scale. > > Powers of 2 (0, 1, 2, 4, 8) > Linear (0, 1, 2, 3) > Fibonacci (0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8) > > > (we're using the scrum agile project management framework) /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
