How do you track and adjust relative sizing over time in agile?

1 Use a reference story

A reference story is a user story that has a fixed size, usually one or two points, that serves as a baseline for comparing other stories. It should be a simple and well-understood story that the team has already completed or can easily complete. By using a reference story, you can avoid the inflation or deflation of story sizes over time, and maintain a common understanding of what each point means.

2 Review your sizing regularly

As your project progresses, you may discover new requirements, dependencies, risks, or technical challenges that affect your sizing. You may also improve your skills, tools, or processes, and become faster or more efficient. To account for these changes, you should review your sizing regularly, and adjust it if needed. You can do this during your iteration planning, retrospective, or backlog refinement sessions, by revisiting your completed and upcoming stories, and checking if they still match your reference story and your expectations.

4 Communicate and collaborate

One of the key principles of agile is to communicate and collaborate with your team and your stakeholders. This applies to relative sizing as well. You should involve your team members in the sizing process, and use techniques such as planning poker, affinity estimation, or team estimation game to elicit their opinions and perspectives. You should also communicate your sizing assumptions and criteria to your stakeholders, such as your product owner, customer, or sponsor, and get their feedback and validation. By communicating and collaborating, you can ensure that your relative sizing is transparent, consistent, and aligned with the project goals and expectations.

5 Experiment and learn

Finally, you should remember that relative sizing is not an exact science, but a learning process. You should experiment with different methods, tools, and scales of sizing, and see what works best for your team and your project. You should also learn from your mistakes, successes, and feedback, and continuously improve your sizing skills and accuracy. By experimenting and learning, you can make relative sizing a valuable and effective technique for agile planning.