- In agile software development, story points are units of relative size used in estimating requirements as an alternative to units of time
- You are trying to answer the question of size/complexity not duration first
- The second important property of points is that the units are relative, not absolute. They form a consistent measurement - the relative size/complexity of one requirement to the other does not shift as much as the effort/duration necessary to complete it (or, put differently, the size/complexity is a variable that changes less often and can be applied to different teams without the need to re-estimate)
- The discussion about the estimates is no longer on "why is this going to take you so long" but rather "why is this so complex"?
Visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_points for more details.
