a tiny lesson learned while ‘doing’ scrum

We all estimated the same! next story!

Backlog refinement issen’t what most people would call fun. I personally find it fun, but most of my colleagues would rather be building products than pokering. So, when we’re estimating a story and everyone has pokered the same amount of storypoints / complexity, it’s very tempting to leave it at that. “We all agree, yay! Next story please!”.

Let's agree to agree

The important question here is, why do we agree? It’s possible that all members of the development factored in a different part of complexity, while overlooking another. Therefore, the team needs to discuss why they agree. This ensures the input of all team members is reflected in the final estimate. Don’t overdo it, but for sure don’t skip it. Everyone giving the same ‘wrong’ answer doesn’t make it right, or alter the question asked.