Why We Stopped Using Story Points
Story points were supposed to make estimation easier. Instead, they turned planning into a negotiation sport. Here's what we do instead.
The promise
Story points were meant to solve a real problem: estimating work is hard, and using hours creates false precision. The idea was simple - use relative sizing to compare work items, and let the team calibrate over time.
It sounds reasonable. In practice, it's a disaster.
What actually happens
We've sat in hundreds of planning sessions. Here's what story points look like in the wild:
- A 45-minute debate about whether something is a 3 or a 5
- A senior developer who thinks everything is a 1
- A product manager who uses points to measure team performance
- A velocity chart that goes up and to the right because the team learned to inflate
The numbers stop meaning anything. They become a language for negotiation, not estimation. And the time spent debating them is time that could have been spent doing the work.
"We spent more time arguing about whether it was a 5 or an 8 than it would have taken to just build the thing."
The deeper problem
Story points abstract away the one thing that actually matters: how long will this take a human to do?
Everyone knows what "a morning's work" means. Nobody knows what "5 points" means - not really. It's a number that only has meaning inside your team's specific, fragile calibration. New team member? Recalibrate. Team composition changes? Recalibrate. Sprint length changes? Believe it or not - recalibrate.
What we do instead
In Argile Focus, we estimate in human time:
- Coffee break - under an hour
- Morning - 2 to 4 hours
- Half day - 4 to 6 hours
That's it. No Fibonacci. No planning poker. No debates.
If something doesn't fit into one of these sizes, it's too big. Break it down until it does.
Why this works
The total effort of a Focus is just the sum of its Actions. There's no separate estimation ceremony. You size each Action as you create it, and the picture builds itself.
This means:
- No estimation meetings
- No velocity tracking
- No abstract numbers that lose meaning over time
- Progress is measured by what's done, not what was guessed
The result
Teams using Argile Focus spend zero time on estimation theatre and all of their time on the work itself. Progress is real because it's built from completed Actions, not projected from abstract numbers.
Story points had good intentions. But good intentions aren't enough when the practice creates more overhead than value.
It's time to estimate like humans again.