frontend tasks are usually easier than backend ones, do we estimate them with different SP?

[Giulia Carletto]

Our team has 2 backend developers and 1 frontend. We find it easier to split stories and have backend and frontend stories separately. We have noticed that so far that backend stories/tasks are usually harder than frontend ones simply because it takes us more steps/effort to consider a backend story as done.

We have been estimating in time but trying to switch to Story Points and a question came up. We might consider the easiest frontend story as a one pointer but the easiest backend story will require more effort than that: shall we consider the backend story as a 1 pointer? or shall we estimate frontend and backend stories on their effort/complexity and frontend stories will generally have less story points than backend ones?

Thank you!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

No, the story points the team use for estimation are not an absolute measure, they are intended to be used as a relative sizing.

If it's the same team doing the work, in the same boards and sprints, it's fine if certain types of task tend to be estimated smaller than others.  By definition, an 8SP story is harder than a 5SP story.

Of course, if it's two separate teams, then you don't need to worry about the story points comparison - SP usually can't be compared across different teams.

All you've seen here is that you do have a certain stories that tend to be more simple to get through than others.  It's useful to know, but not the wrong thing to do.

[Giulia Carletto]

thank you very much! this clarifies it.