Fixing Story Point Inflation
Story point inflation is killing us. What used to be 3 points is now 8. Velocity looks great on paper but we're shipping less. How do you fix this without re-estimating your entire backlog?
Re-establish reference stories. Pick 3-5 old stories everyone agrees were correctly sized. Before each planning session, review these anchors: "Remember, user login was a 2, search filters was a 5, API migration was a 13."
This recalibrates everyone's mental model. We did this and inflation stopped within 2 sprints. No backlog re-estimation needed.
Call it out in retrospectives. Track average points per story over time. When it creeps up, discuss why. Usually it's fear of commitment or padding estimates. Make it visible and teams self-correct. We chart 'average story size' and review it monthly.
Institute a "Why not smaller?" rule. When someone proposes 8 points, ask "Could this be done as a 5 if we descoped X?" Forces intentional estimation. Inflation happens when teams stop questioning large estimates.
Controversial: reset the scale. Declare "point inflation amnesty" and re-baseline all future estimates against current complexity. Acknowledge old points don't translate 1:1. Track velocity as "new points" vs "old points". Clean slate approach.