Story points and velocity in Agile in Software Engineering - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Understanding Story Points and Velocity in Agile

📖 Scenario: You are part of a software development team using Agile methodology. Your team wants to estimate how much work they can complete in each sprint using story points and calculate the velocity to plan future sprints better.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple data structure to represent user stories with their story points, set a sprint goal for total story points, calculate the total story points completed in a sprint, and determine the team's velocity.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary of user stories with exact story point values

Add a variable for the sprint goal in story points

Calculate the total story points completed in the sprint using a loop

Calculate the velocity as the total story points completed divided by the number of sprints

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Agile teams use story points to estimate the effort required for user stories and velocity to measure how much work they can complete in each sprint. This helps in planning and delivering software efficiently.

💼 Career

Understanding story points and velocity is essential for roles like Scrum Master, Product Owner, Agile Coach, and software developers working in Agile environments to manage and track project progress.

1

Create the user stories dictionary

Create a dictionary called user_stories with these exact entries: 'Login Feature': 5, 'Shopping Cart': 8, 'Payment Gateway': 13, 'User Profile': 3, 'Search Function': 5.

Software Engineering

# Create the user_stories dictionary with story points
# Your code here

Hint

Use curly braces {} to create a dictionary with keys as story names and values as story points.

2

Set the sprint goal

Add a variable called sprint_goal and set it to 20 to represent the total story points the team aims to complete in the sprint.

Software Engineering

user_stories = {
    'Login Feature': 5,
    'Shopping Cart': 8,
    'Payment Gateway': 13,
    'User Profile': 3,
    'Search Function': 5
}
# Set the sprint_goal variable to 20
# Your code here

Hint

Assign the number 20 to the variable sprint_goal.

3

Calculate total story points completed

Create a variable called total_completed and set it to 0. Then use a for loop with variables story and points to iterate over user_stories.items(). Inside the loop, add points to total_completed.

Software Engineering

user_stories = {
    'Login Feature': 5,
    'Shopping Cart': 8,
    'Payment Gateway': 13,
    'User Profile': 3,
    'Search Function': 5
}
sprint_goal = 20

# Calculate total_completed story points
# Your code here

Hint

Initialize total_completed to zero before the loop. Use for story, points in user_stories.items(): to loop through the dictionary.

4

Calculate the velocity

Add a variable called number_of_sprints and set it to 1. Then create a variable called velocity and set it to total_completed divided by number_of_sprints.

Software Engineering

user_stories = {
    'Login Feature': 5,
    'Shopping Cart': 8,
    'Payment Gateway': 13,
    'User Profile': 3,
    'Search Function': 5
}
sprint_goal = 20

total_completed = 0
for story, points in user_stories.items():
    total_completed += points

# Set number_of_sprints to 1 and calculate velocity
# Your code here

Hint

Set number_of_sprints to 1. Then calculate velocity by dividing total_completed by number_of_sprints.

Practice

1. What do story points represent in Agile project management?

easy

A. The deadline for completing a project

B. The exact number of hours needed to finish a task

C. A relative measure of effort required to complete a task

D. The total number of tasks in a sprint

Solution

1. Step 1: Understand story points concept

   Story points are used to estimate how much effort a task will take compared to other tasks, not exact hours.

2. Step 2: Differentiate from time estimates

   Unlike hours, story points are relative and help teams compare tasks easily.

3. Final Answer:

   A relative measure of effort required to complete a task -> Option C

4. Quick Check:

   Story points = relative effort [OK]

Hint: Story points measure effort, not exact time [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Confusing story points with hours
• Thinking story points count tasks
• Mixing story points with deadlines

2. Which of the following best defines velocity in Agile?

easy

A. The total story points completed in a sprint

B. The time taken to complete a single task

C. The number of team members working on a sprint

D. The number of meetings held during a sprint

Solution

1. Step 1: Identify velocity meaning

   Velocity is the sum of story points completed by the team in one sprint.

2. Step 2: Exclude unrelated options

   Team size, task time, and meetings do not define velocity.

3. Final Answer:

   The total story points completed in a sprint -> Option A

4. Quick Check:

   Velocity = completed story points [OK]

Hint: Velocity sums completed story points per sprint [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Confusing velocity with team size
• Thinking velocity is task duration
• Mixing velocity with number of meetings

3. A team completed tasks with story points: 3, 5, 2, and 8 in a sprint. What is their velocity?

medium

A. 20

B. 18

C. 10

D. 8

Solution

1. Step 1: Add all completed story points

   Sum = 3 + 5 + 2 + 8 = 18

2. Step 2: Confirm velocity definition

   Velocity is total story points done in sprint, so 18 is correct.

3. Final Answer:

   18 -> Option B

4. Quick Check:

   3+5+2+8 = 18 [OK]

Hint: Add all completed story points for velocity [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Adding incorrectly
• Choosing highest single story point
• Confusing velocity with number of tasks

4. A team planned 30 story points for a sprint but completed only 22. What is the velocity and what does it indicate?

medium

A. Velocity is 22; team completed less than planned

B. Velocity is 30; team met the plan

C. Velocity is 52; sum of planned and completed

D. Velocity is 8; difference between planned and completed

Solution

1. Step 1: Identify velocity from completed points

   Velocity equals story points actually completed, which is 22.

2. Step 2: Interpret velocity vs plan

   Since 22 is less than planned 30, team completed fewer points than expected.

3. Final Answer:

   Velocity is 22; team completed less than planned -> Option A

4. Quick Check:

   Velocity = completed points = 22 [OK]

Hint: Velocity = completed points, not planned [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Using planned points as velocity
• Adding planned and completed points
• Using difference as velocity

5. If a team's average velocity is 25 story points per sprint, how many sprints will they need to complete a backlog of 120 story points?

hard

A. 3

B. 4

C. 6

D. 5

Solution

1. Step 1: Calculate number of sprints needed

   Divide total backlog points by average velocity: 120 ÷ 25 = 4.8 sprints.

2. Step 2: Round up to whole sprints

   Since partial sprints are not practical, round up to 5 sprints.

3. Final Answer:

   5 -> Option D

4. Quick Check:

   120/25 ≈ 5 sprints [OK]

Hint: Divide backlog by velocity, round up [OK]

Common Mistakes:

• Rounding down instead of up
• Using velocity as planned points
• Ignoring partial sprint calculation