Problem statement
If you have the following issues during a scrum estimation or planning session.
- I estimate a user storie because there seem to be dependencie with other ones
- I cannot estimate the user story based on a one-liner
- The estimation depends on who will pick up the user story
Why all these problems
There seem to be dependencies
Well if there seem to be dependencies there are probably dependencies! Despite what scrum people are trying to make you believe, no user story is independent. In fact if it was independent the user story probably was not even valuable.
Estimations based on one-liner
You should not make estimations based on one-liners. It cannot be done. The added value of throwing a number out there is as valuable as flipping a coin (in this case a random user story point generator).
In fact you should not estimate based on a requirement, which a user story most often is. How can you estimate on a requirement if you do not know what to change/build/extend in the code base? Estimations are done on the actual work that needs to happen. If 80% of the code has been written or can be reused, the estimation will be the remaining 20%. If only 10% has been built, the estimation will be the remaining 90%. Both these estimations can be correct for the same user story, it only depends on when in time you estimate it.
Who will pick up the user story
Why does it depend so much on who picks up the user story? Well, when the only thing you have to go on is a one-liner there is a lot left to individual interpretation. The more experience you have with the project the more context you can fill in surrounding that one-liner.
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