My team wants to resize their stories every sprint. Our release consists of 8 sprints of 2 weeks each. We are in our 5th sprint. Our actual velocity is lower than the release planning velocity. Are we doing it right? If your answer is either ‘yes’ or ‘no’, please explain why?
Suggested solution:
Relative sizing at the release level is a story grouping exercise based on the information we have at that time. We identify complexity factors, pick reference stories and group other stories relatively against the reference(s).
If the initial complexity assumptions change, it is important that we resize the story against the initial reference.
When we resize our stories during Sprint Planning meetings (that is during project execution), in spite of unchanged initial assumptions, we are letting our progressive knowledge influence the release plan. Then we have to resize even the completed stories of previous sprints according to our current knowledge and adjust the whole metrics appropriately.
