There are different units of work associated with Agile projects. Work can be broken as features, epics, user stories, and tasks. You'll begin estimating the schedule for the project. While you may be accustomed to estimating tasks in measurements like hours or days, the Professional Scrum method involves approaching this differently. Rather than jumping directly into absolute units, you'll begin estimating the schedule by comparing tasks with each other and assigning units of effort or story points. You'll examine the process for this in the discussion, along with the benefits of approaching scheduling this way. You'll also apply this process of scheduling toward your product backlog items.
Define each unit of work and its relationship to the other units. Provide an example that enables you to demonstrate your understanding of the units of work.
Full Answer Section
User Story:
- Definition: A clear, concise description of a specific user need or functionality, written from the user's perspective. It's actionable and testable.
- Relationship: User stories represent smaller chunks of work within an epic. They are further broken down into tasks.
- Example: "As a customer, I want to search for products by category and filter by price so I can easily find what I'm looking for."
Task:
- Definition: The smallest unit of work, representing a specific, concrete action required to complete a user story. Tasks are typically estimated in hours or days.
- Relationship: Tasks are the individual steps needed to complete a user story. They are not further divided.
- Example: "Design the search bar interface for the e-commerce platform."
Relative Estimation (Story Points):
- Method: Instead of directly estimating tasks in hours or days, agile methods like Scrum use relative estimation based on "story points."
- Process: The team assigns story points based on the relative effort compared to other stories they've completed.
- Benefits: This avoids the trap of overly optimistic time estimates and fosters collaboration during estimation.
Example of Relative Estimation:
Suppose the team has already completed two user stories:
- User Story 1 (Adding a product to cart): 3 story points
- User Story 2 (Checkout process): 5 story points
For a new user story "Implement product reviews," the team estimates:
- User Story 3 (Product Reviews): 2 story points (slightly easier than Story 1)
This relative comparison helps the team understand the complexity and effort involved without getting bogged down in absolute time estimates.
Remember, this is a simplified example. In practice, estimating story points can be nuanced and requires ongoing discussion and refinement within the team.
Additional Notes:
- Not all agile methods use story points. Some use other relative estimation techniques like T-shirt sizes (S, M, L) or Fibonacci numbers.
- The size of epics, user stories, and tasks can vary depending on the project and team preferences.