How assign story points for new employee at a startup?

[Sharon Sahar]

Hi,

How assign story points for a new employee (just arrived) at a startup?

We are considering one of the options below but don't sure:

1. Assing the same sp  for a task the same as current employees, but account him to reach 75% velocity as them

2. Increase estimations for him, so each task will have more 25-50% more story points than existing employee.

How the recommended option affects the average velocity calculation?

[Scott Theus · Accepted solution]

Story points should be based on the team's velocity, not single individuals.  If you are concerned that the new guy will reduce the overall velocity of the team then you can either lower the number of points committed to during your sprint planning or keep the points the same for the first sprint with the new guy and, if the team does not complete all the points in the sprint use the amount actually finished in your next velocity calculation and adjust further if needed. By the time you've run 2-3 sprints you should have an accurate velocity.

If you do this then you are not singling out the new guy for the reduced production of the team; rather you are giving the team the opportunity to help the new person get on board faster and allowing them to decide among themselves how best to incorporate the new person. 

Sprint/Scrum teams should be self-governing; trust them and they will figure it out themselves.

-Scott

[Sharon Sahar]

Thanks, beautiful :)

From the technical side, assuming a team of 4 has a stable velocity of 100.
So in the first week of the new guy (5th engineer), We continue to estimate tasks regularly regardless who will do them, and maybe start with lower velocity like 115 instead of 125 (for a team of 5 now), run for few sprints and then find the new team velocity ?

[Scott Theus]

Yes, I think that makes sense. If your team is regularly hitting the 100 point mark then adding 15 points for the newbie should work well...If they hit the 115 mark right away then bump it up a bit for the next sprint.