useful things

Story sizes in agile development should be as close to one day as possible

I actually prefer half-day stories. It takes discipline, practice and a focus on refining and planning the work to be done.

Focus on thinking slow, but coding fast.

Story sizes should average as close to one day as possible. If they don’t your Agile project is going to be harder for nearly everyone involved. If your average is significantly greater than that one day, then change something until you get there. Change technologies if you have to, or split stories, or eliminate NFRs (or delay them).

What if you average is significantly longer than that one-day mark? What if it is, say, 3 days with the increased risk to measured progress and team morale? Work out what is wrong, and change it, is the answer. Spoiler: You either have the wrong people, or the wrong technologies, or stories imperfect for development to start, or poor development infra, or odious non-functional requirements.

Paul Hammant →

Published 28 April 2022, with 155 words.