Story point
A relative, unit-less measure of the effort, complexity, and uncertainty involved in delivering a Product Backlog item.
What it means
Story points are not part of official Scrum; they are a widely used estimation technique. Rather than estimating hours, teams compare items against each other, often using a Fibonacci-like scale such as 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.
The relative nature of story points is their main value: two items each estimated at 5 points should feel similarly effortful, even though the absolute time to complete them can vary by team and by individual.
Common mistakes
Story points are commonly generated through techniques like Planning Poker or affinity estimation during Refinement, and are summed to calculate a team's Velocity for forecasting.
Example
The team estimates a new login page at 3 points and a data migration task at 13 points, reflecting relative complexity.