How about custom point values
I'd love to be able to set different scales based on the project type. So one project might have 1-10 scale, while another would have 0-2. This would allow me to make Tracker best fit my existing processes.
83
people like this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The best point from the company
-
We have this feature in the Tracker backlog. Look for it early next year!
3 people think
this is one of the best points
The best point from everyone
-
I appreciate that tracker prescribes much of the process, eliminating choices that are meaningless or problematic... so I don't feel that more point choices will make us any more productive or our estimates any better...
A couple points, though:
- zero pt stories are allowed. I wrote a separate report requesting the ability not turn this off.
- It _would_ be useful support larger pt values (13/20/40 etc.) for "epics". We've had to find out some way around this. We've used a couple techniques (unsuccessfully):
(a) don't estimate these stories until we can break them up
(b) our highest pt value is "illegal" and denotes a story that needs to be re-estimated. These are both "hacks" around the tool
It would be nice to do this the right way.
5 people think
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?You may have seen that you can choose an exponential point scale that gives you 1,2,4,8 point stories.
-
Inappropriate?We have this feature in the Tracker backlog. Look for it early next year!
3 people think
this is one of the best points
-
Hey Dan, how about that one? it has been over a year. Just let us know if you guys are planning to implement that feature or not.
Thanks! -
Inappropriate?This is not quite the same, and I know it's a complicated ask, but I would love to be able to adjust the point scale for an existing project. Our project currently uses 0-2 points, but we've come to the conclusion that we need a broader range than that. I'd be happy if we could change to the Fibonacci or exponential scale. This could be a simple mapping from the current to the new point system (0 = 1, 1 = 3, 2 = 8).
-
Inappropriate?Just to make sure everyone knows, Tracker gives you the option of choosing from one of three different scales for your project:
Linear (1/2/3)
Powers of 2 (1/2/4/8)
Fibonacci (1/2/3/5/8)
As Dan says, we're also working on totally custom point scales.
2 people think
this is one of the best points
-
Any update on this? The last employee post in from a year ago. -
Yes, I reallly need this, and I am waiting too. It would be REALLY good if we could have this, even in a paid version, it's ok too! =) -
Inappropriate?The choices are cool, but be careful. At some point at the beginning (starting the first story?) your choice of point scales is locked forevermore.
I’m wishing I could trade my linear points in for fibonacci points
-
Inappropriate?I appreciate that tracker prescribes much of the process, eliminating choices that are meaningless or problematic... so I don't feel that more point choices will make us any more productive or our estimates any better...
A couple points, though:
- zero pt stories are allowed. I wrote a separate report requesting the ability not turn this off.
- It _would_ be useful support larger pt values (13/20/40 etc.) for "epics". We've had to find out some way around this. We've used a couple techniques (unsuccessfully):
(a) don't estimate these stories until we can break them up
(b) our highest pt value is "illegal" and denotes a story that needs to be re-estimated. These are both "hacks" around the tool
It would be nice to do this the right way.
5 people think
this is one of the best points
-
+1 for epics.
Someone suggested an idea that I liked: an epic is a story with arbitrary size (pt value) that can't be started.
This would be great for high level planning but prevent you from cheating the system by skipping detailed estimating. -
we would need the 13/20/40 estimates as well. We are using 8 as an blocker this is an ugly hack. So it would be perfect to have a support for epics! -
Inappropriate?In fact, we'd probably like to be able to have two levels of estimation. Yup, I know, but bear with me.
Before we get into nitty gritty detail on stories we t-shirt size everything (S,M,L,XL), and then assign broad costs to those t-shirt sizes.
An iteration or two before we start a story we'll detail cost it (drill into more functional and then ultimately technical detail).
It's useful having the t-shirt cost because that costing is done en-masse as a relative complexity costing, and so that provides the team with a means of re-adjusting overall project estimates as stories are accepted.
The detail costing exercise is really just a means of getting the team talking about detail in a group so everyone knows what's coming, though those in charge of planning like to think that the detail cost is more accurate that the t-shirt (it sometimes is), and therefore have both available.
-
Inappropriate?Why does the fibonacci scale end at 8 btw? Is it a big issue to pin up a couple of more? Up to 21 for example, or is it not adviced within Agile Development?
-
Inappropriate?Just to harp in on ideas here:
- I'd love to see 'longer' scales for values too. The 4 option sets are rather limiting
- I'd love to see multiple estimation levels too. With my situation in Product Management, we use the points to manage estimation for dev-time, and are jamming the 'product improvement/importance' into the comments. For example, there are some things that we want to do that take 4points of dev time, but only improve the product by 1 point; and vice versa. It would be nice to be able to track both - letting the dev team and management teams better prioritize the build cycles.
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
-
So you're saying you want to track business value as well as effort/size for a story. That seems like a good idea for some teams. I've always found it hard to come up with a good scale other than high, medium, low... -
Inappropriate?How do we set points via a text box, not a pre-defined drop-down scale?
If this doesn't exist yet, can you add this as a feature request? -
I almost added this suggestion myself, but stopped because I actually like the "enforcement" aspect of only allowing certain values. Part of the problem is the appropriate values are context sensitive. For example, I'd like to enforce that a stories estimate has to be 5 or lower before it's scheduled for the current iteration, but larger estimates are good for epics which are kind of place holders in the backlog and for release planning. -
Inappropriate?My team also need more, larger point values; say fibonacci up to 21 or 34. Are there any plans for such a feature?
-
Inappropriate?Is there a status on this. The note above says to look for it earlier next year? Well, we are almost a mid next year :)
I’m confident that you will add this soon.
-
Inappropriate?I quite often use 13 (Fibonacci) to estimate larger or riskier stories, and I don't use 0 at all. I could just shift everything down a position (I didn't even realise you could have zero point stories), but I think 13 is useful. 21 would probably be too big, and need breaking up.
I’m glad to see that the issue is being discussed
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?Just to be clear, I don't want to see custom point values (unless it enforces they are valid on the scale being used) but extending the scales to more than four/five values. At least 13 for Fibonacci. If people use varying scale limits in the wild, then maybe custom with validation is better.
-
Inappropriate?I think this is probably a better idea than custom scales. I would not need custom scales if the existing scales were extended. In fact, that would seem like a good interim solution.
I’m confident
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?Exactly. The idea is not to have epic stories, but 13 is still a reasonable point score for a large or risky story. If I were to give a story 21, I would break it up into a 13 and an 8 point story, or declare it as epic at 21 and not tackle it until it can be broken up. But having the limit set to 8 is just too low. If you look at Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn, you'll find 13 is used often for large stories. This simple limitation is pretty much a showstopper for me. Every other developer I know using Scrum uses a scale at least to 13.
I’m having to shift left everything on my point scale to make it work on a scale that only goes up to eight!
-
Inappropriate?the numbers above 13 would be great for the long range planning. When we are accessing new "things" we split them up in the main parts and use story points for each. We do not want to split the main parts it is enough to have a 13 + 20 + 40 to know the cost for the feature. Right now we need to track this on a whiteboard and use pivotal only for the tasks that are split up below 8 (so that we can use 8 as the blocker).
I’m unhappy to use a whiteboard for the planning of big features only because I am missing 3(!) values on the scale
-
Inappropriate?So it has been over a year. Where is this feature in the backlog now? Would like a fibonacci sequence with 13,20 to throw in larger stories that won't be tackled for a while, and will be broken down as we get closer to implementation.
I’m anxious
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
-
I'm waiting too! -
Inappropriate?Hi,
I'm also very interested in this feature.When could we have custom point scales available?
I’m anxious too!!!!
-
Inappropriate?We've been using .5 a lot in our preliminary pointing of stories.
The interface for entering points could be as simple as a text field.
-
Inappropriate?a) Any progress?
b) Smaller values are good too. Sometimes things are easy, and sometimes points end up just meaning too large. In these cases, 1/2, 1/4, and even 1/8 are totally useful.
c) At the very least, add 2 or 3 more levels to each of the three scales.
I’m sad this still hasn't been addressed.
-
Inappropriate?Hi,
The perfect points value scale for me has been...
0.1
0.25
0.5
1
3
Now that may look strange but it's actually a great points value that represents time very well. Because teh above scale is in days...
So essentially 0.1 is very small 0.25 is 2 hours 0.5 is 4 hours and so on.
There is no 0 because nothing takes 0 amount of time ;)
I've used this points scale on multiple projects with multiple teams and it has always worked fantastically for new members coming into the team and just as well with seasoned members.
When you add the custom feature is there any chance you could allow it to use float values up to 2 decimals.
That would be great!
Justin :)
I’m hoping you like this
-
Inappropriate?Ah....
Thor Muller shared this idea over 3 years ago.
It ain't NEVER gonna happen then!!! LOL
-
Inappropriate?Look, I don't think you use the point scale correctly (0 is not supposed to be assigned to anything). You don't think I use it correctly (because I use a hybrid linear/power scale 1 1.5 2 3 4 6 8). Perhaps neither one of us is completely right. Or maybe there is no right or wrong on this.
At least tell us that custom point scales would complicate the UI too much, or that the program can't wrap its brain around certain custom scales.
Answering people's requests and concerns by telling them how you're right makes you come across as arrogant.
I’m frustrated
-
It's never gonna happen! :) That's my take anyways -
Inappropriate?This would help very much, especially extension to the upper limit.
I’m upset that this change is still outstanding after so many requests
-
Inappropriate?When will Custom Storypoints feature become available? There is a big discussion on this already for 1 year now. Can you inform me on the status?
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Custom StoryPoints.
I’m sad
-
Inappropriate?Please let us choose additional story point values.
We use 1,2,3,5,8, 13, and 20. We would also like to be able to have 40 and 100. The visual display of story size doesn't seem very useful either, which is probably the reason for the limitation.
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Why limit story point values? Give more flexibility here..
I’m happy
Loading Profile...



EMPLOYEE

EMPLOYEE









