A Practical Advice on Rejecting Estimating Story Points for Test Automation

Estimating Story Points for Test Automation is Silly

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Many years ago, I worked on a client project for a small start-up company. B, A co-founder (without coding/testing background), was particularly fixated on story points. His actions led me to believe he thought he had cracked the secret code of software development, “Velocity based on User Story Points”, as the project went very well.

The main success factor, as the staff told me (and almost in all previous client projects), was the E2E Test Automation I implemented that enabled quality releases every sprint. Besides that, my daily E2E test automation regression testing (running in BuildWise CT Server) picked many regression defects on a daily basis for the other three sister-projects, which made this start-up shine.

Readers might think I am bragging. Check out this article, Analyses of the Wired Article: “The Software Revolution Behind LinkedIn’s Gushing Profits”

B ordered a printing out of a stack of “Story Estimation Cards” like the one below, with a Fibonacci sequence number and company logo at the back. B was very proud of “this product”, making staff use it in the…