For years, software teams have used story points to estimate effort, track progress, and forecast delivery timelines. The idea was noble: avoid the illusion of precision that comes from estimating in hours, and instead focus on relative complexity. Points would help normalize estimation, encourage team collaboration, and guide sustainable delivery.

But in practice, that’s not what happened.

Instead, story points have become a source of confusion, inconsistency, and debate. Teams spend more time arguing whether something is a 3 or a 5 than they do actually building. Velocity becomes a target. Burn-down charts get gamed. Leaders ask for time-based plans and get abstract point totals that mean nothing outside the team.

Let’s be honest: story points aren’t helping as much as we’d like to think.

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The Problem with Abstraction

We’ve tried everything — t-shirt sizes, coffee cups, dogs, Fibonacci numbers — all in an effort to not say the thing we actually mean.

Because when you really dig into it, what people want to know is simple:

How long will this take?

Not in points. Not in proxy. In hours.

Nobody says, “It’ll take 13 points to mow the lawn.” They say, “Give me 45 minutes.”

That’s how people naturally communicate. That’s how clients budget. That’s how time is managed everywhere else in life.

So why are we speaking a language that only makes sense in planning poker sessions?

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What We Do Instead

At augustwenty, we’ve moved beyond story points — not because the concept is broken, but because clarity matters more than cleverness.

• We estimate in hours or small ranges.
• We break down work until it’s understandable by anyone in the room — engineers, product owners, clients.
• We use real data to improve over time.
• And we don’t track “velocity” like it’s a performance metric. We track outcomes, delivery, and impact.

It’s not perfect. No estimation method is. But it gets us closer to real conversations about effort, tradeoffs, and timelines — especially in a consulting context, where ambiguity kills trust.

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Are Story Points All Bad?

No. Story points can still work — in long-running, cross-functional product teams that share deep context and trust.

If you use them internally, intentionally, and transparently, they can help normalize complexity over time.

But that’s rare. And fragile.

More often than not, story points become another layer of abstraction that makes things harder to understand, not easier.

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Final Word

Story points aren’t evil. They’re just often misused — and misunderstood.

In our world — where clients want visibility, teams need alignment, and projects move fast — we need estimation methods that reflect reality.

Not rituals. Not proxies. Not gamified charts.

If you want better planning and better outcomes, speak in terms people actually understand.

Story points are not the story. Clear expectations, thoughtful breakdowns, and honest conversations are.