Estimations Unplugged: The Story Sizing Studio

We’ve all been there — staring at story cards, debating whether

it’s a 3, 5,or 8… and wondering if we’re really estimating effort or just rolling dice.

This board is for a quick, reflective session — from guesswork to groundwork - to find out the story behind estimation — where we’ll unpack what estimation really means for us, how to make it more meaningful, and why the conversation around the numbers matters more than the numbers themselves. Duration: atleast 60 minutes Audience: Scrum team (devs, QA, PO, designer, etc.) Facilitator: You (Scrum Master)

Objectives

By the end of this session, the team will:

• Understand what story points represent (relative effort, not time)

• Learn to calibrate “1”, “2”, “3”, “5”, “8” based on their backlog

• Practice estimating together through discussion and alignment

• Build a shared reference baseline for future sprints Workshop Flow

1. Warm-up: “What’s in a Point?”

• Purpose: Get everyone’s assumptions out in the open.

• Activity:

• Ask: “When you give a story 5 points, what does that mean to you?”

• Capture answers on Miro with sticky notes (e.g., effort, risk, unknowns, size, time).

• Group responses into buckets like:

  • Effort / Work volume

  • Complexity

  • Risk / Uncertainty

  • Dependencies

• Say:“Points aren’t hours. They’re how we feel about relative effort considering these factors — how big, how complex, how risky.”

2. The “Reference Story” Game

• Purpose: Define your team’s “1”.

• Steps:

• Pull 5–6 real user stories from your backlog (recently done ones work best).

• “Which one of these feels like the simplest, smallest, most straightforward piece of work?”

• Mark that story as your baseline = 1 point.

• Discuss why it’s a 1 — what made it simple?

• Say: “This story becomes our yardstick. Everything else will be compared to this.”

3. Relative Estimation Round

• Purpose: Compare and calibrate other stories.

• Steps:

• Take one new story at a time.

• “Compared to our 1-point story, is this about the same, twice as complex, or more?”

• Use Planning Poker cards (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13).

• Have everyone vote. You could tell the team about different virtual tools like planitpoker.com / simply ask them to turn on their cameras and use their fingers for voting.

• If votes differ, ask:

  • “What’s making you think 5 instead of 3?”

  • “Is there risk, unknowns, or integration work?”

• Let the team align through discussion.

• Say:“There’s no right number — we’re building shared understanding. The conversation is more valuable than the number itself.” On the right side of the board , I've mentioned about the Miro approach for stories that the team finds difficult to point. We break the story down in terms of dependencies, blockers, risks, unknowns. The team gets a numerical value against each breakdown. Then total score = Dependencies + Risks + Unknowns + Blockers

Use the total score to quickly decide the story’s readiness. Additional details about the model are on the board itself.

4. Mini Reflection

Ask the team:

• “What helped you decide your number?”

• “Was it easier once we had a 1?”

• “How might this help in future sprint planning?”

Capture takeaways (like “define our 1 early”, “avoid mixing time and effort”, etc.)

5.Estimation Olympics

If time allows — gamify it:

• Split into sub-teams/ breakout rooms.

• Give both the same 3 new backlog stories.

• Each team estimates independently.

• Compare results and discuss differences.

• See if reasoning aligns — great conversation starter!

6. Key Takeaways for the Team

• Story points ≠ hours or days.

• “1” means our simplest story so far. Capture the conclusions.

• Everything else is relative to that baseline.

• The value is in the discussion, not the digits. Capture all the conclusions