That's Not the Point of Points

Imagine a Scrum team that cuts down trees. The team consists of Paul Bunyan and Homer Simpson.

To size their work, they assign points to trees:

• Fir trees = 1 point

• Oak trees = 2 points

• Walnut trees = 5 points

Sprint Planning

Paul Bunyan plans to cut down 20 Oak trees this Sprint. Homer Simpson estimates he can handle one Fir tree. This means that - as a whole - the Scrum team plans to deliver 21 points in the upcoming Sprint.

But wait. Should we change Homer’s Fir tree to 20 points because he will be putting a lot of effort into that single tree? After all, then both Paul and Homer would have the same number of points for the upcoming Sprint.

No!

Points are not for measuring individual performance. Homer's 1 point isn't compared to Paul's 20 points to judge productivity, talent or even skill. We don't need them to be equal. After all, we all know that Paul Bunyan is awesome and Homer is, well, new at this. We don’t need to fake numbers to make Homer look like Paul’s equal. He isn’t. But we can't all be Paul Bunyan.

The Purpose of Points

Points exist for planning. Homer usually completes one point per Sprint. If we inflate his number to 20, then it will look like the Scrum team delivered 40 points worth of work, when they really only delivered 21. Inflating the data this way wrecks our ability to forecast future delivery. How can I give an accurate guess for where we will be two or three Sprints from now if we keep inflate value delivery for the current Sprint?

Points Are for Planning, Not Performance Reviews

Paul delivers more value—everyone knows that. But faking the numbers to make Homer look like his equal? That’s not the point of points. Points are for planning and forecasting, not for performance reviews or comparing Developers to each other.

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