Agile development teams complete work in sprints, typically 2-3 week periods during which a team works exclusively on an itemized to-do list known as a sprint backlog.
During sprint planning, teams work together to estimate the level of effort required for development of each upcoming backlog item (also called user stories) through a process called effort pointing. Our tool, Planning Poker®, is a fun, refreshing way to run through a list of user stories and assign effort points to them as a team.
Over time, the team establishes a sprint velocity, or total number of effort points they can feasibly complete in one sprint, which helps determine how many stories a team can pull in during sprint planning.
Be sure to check out Mountain Goat’s upcoming Training and Events, Books and Articles on Scrum, agile estimating & planning and working with user stories.