Practice vocabulary for complexity-based software estimation including story points, t-shirt sizing, velocity, spikes, and the distinction between complexity and effort.
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1 / 5
In agile estimation, 'story complexity' refers to _____.
Story complexity captures the inherent difficulty, risk, and unknowns of a piece of work — deliberately separated from effort so estimates are not tied to an individual's pace.
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When a team uses labels like XS, S, M, L, and XL to size stories instead of numeric points, they are using _____.
T-shirt sizing uses clothing size labels as an intuitive, low-precision scale for quickly categorizing the relative size of stories or epics.
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A team that uses 'complexity points not time estimates' is avoiding _____.
Using complexity points (story points) decouples estimation from individual productivity differences, making the estimates team-relative rather than individual-time-based.
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'Team velocity normalizes across people' means that over time, the team's velocity _____.
Velocity — measured as points completed per sprint — naturally accounts for the team's actual throughput, averaging across different individuals and their varying capacities.
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When a story has too many unknowns to estimate reliably, the team should schedule a _____ first.
A spike is a time-boxed research or investigation task that reduces uncertainty so the team can then estimate the actual story with more confidence.