Business analysis glossary
Story Points
What it is
Story points are a relative estimate of the effort, complexity and uncertainty of a user story, often using a scale like 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. They are not hours and are not compared between different teams. Points combine how much work, how complicated and how uncertain, so a small but risky story might score higher than a larger but familiar one.
Why it matters
Relative sizing is quicker and more honest than guessing hours. Over several sprints a team learns how many points it typically completes, which helps forecasting. The numbers also prompt useful discussion: if one person says 2 and another says 13, they probably understand the story differently, and clarifying it helps everybody.
Example
The Pinecrest team agrees "reset password" is a 3. "Export orders to a spreadsheet" involves more unknowns, so they call it an 8 and the analyst is asked to clarify the file format before the sprint. Their velocity, the number of points finished per sprint, then helps the product owner give honest forecasts instead of promises.