Story Points

I never warmed to the formal processes of Agile.

Sprint reviews, retrospectives, daily standups. So much ceremony. I wrote about it in Tea Ceremony. But I don't hate all of it. Two pieces, against expectation, I actually like.

The first is planning poker. Everyone on the team flips a card at the same time. Estimates surface. If the numbers align, you move on. If they scatter, you talk. The point is not a precise number. The point is making misalignment visible. If A thinks a task is a 3 and B thinks it's a 13, there is hidden risk. This works beyond engineering. Whenever you hand someone a job, aligning on expected effort sharpens the whole estimate.

The second is user stories. "As a ___, I want ___, because ___." The power of this format is goal-sharing. It states not what to build but why to build it. Once the goal is shared, you can delegate the means. No need to dictate implementation details. It becomes a foothold for giving individuals real autonomy.

In the end, I don't hate process. I hate process that exists to perpetuate itself. Take the parts that work. Discard the rest. Maybe that violates the spirit of Agile. But shipping working software was supposed to be the spirit of Agile.