Facilitated by Ola M.

Story points work. But they’re not the only way — and sometimes they’re not the best way.

Welcome to Advanced Agile Estimation:

This session challenges some of the assumptions most Agile teams make about estimation and introduces approaches that may work better for your team’s context. Whether you’re a story points believer or a skeptic, you’ll leave with a broader toolkit and sharper thinking about how to forecast work.

What We’ll Cover:

• A quick honest review of story points: what they’re good for and where they break down
• T-shirt sizing: when rough is better than precise
• #NoEstimates: the argument for skipping estimation entirely and using count-based forecasting
• Flow-based forecasting: using historical throughput and cycle time to predict delivery dates
• Monte Carlo simulation: how probabilistic forecasting works and why it beats single-point estimates
• Right-sizing stories as an alternative to estimating them
• Estimation in scaled environments: how PI Planning and program-level estimation work
• When to estimate and when estimation is waste
• Having honest conversations with stakeholders about uncertainty and forecasting

Live Exercise:

We’ll take a real backlog and forecast it three different ways — story points, throughput-based, and right-sizing — and compare the results.

Who Should Attend:

• Scrum Masters and POs frustrated with estimation ceremonies that consume too much time
• Teams that have been using story points for years and want to challenge their assumptions
• Anyone preparing for SAFe or advanced Scrum certifications

Benefits of Attending This Session:

Participants will leave with multiple estimation approaches they can evaluate for their team, the ability to forecast delivery dates without relying on velocity alone, and the language to have smarter planning conversations with leadership.