How do you include QA if estimating using story points

[Dominic Hurst]

Not being able to estimate points on subtasks makes it very difficult to get an estimate for QA. This tends to make story point estimating working for dev but not for dev and QA unless you duplicate stories one for dev and one for QA.

[Joshwa Marcalle · Accepted solution]

Hi Dominic, 

Your team can:

1. Consider the QA work when estimating the story. This way they can just have subtasks as a checklist item that do not need to be estimated.
2. Estimate all subtasks individually using original estimate (in hours) or PERT estimation. You can do PERT with an app

Hope this helps 

[Dominic Hurst]

Hi Joshwa

ON your point 2 do you mean estimate in Story points on the parent and then pert on the subtasks?

Dom

[Joshwa Marcalle]

Hi Dom, 

I have seen different models in different companies:

1) Estimate the story with story points to set the high level expectations and then the individual subtasks for a more refined estimation using PERT or original estimates

2) Estimate only the Ssubtasks using original estimates or PERT and the estimations rollup to the story

3) Estimate the stories directly using PERT and leave the subtasks without estimation 

You can play with different models for fixed periods of time until your team finds what works for them