Combining Data Analytics with Team Feedback to Improve the Estimation Process in Agile Software Development

We apply a mixed research method to improve the user stories estimation process in a German company following agile software development. We combine software project data analytics with elicitation of teams’ feedback, identify root causes for wrong estimates and propose an improved version of the estimation process. Three major changes are adopted in the new process: a shorter non numerical scale for story points, an analogy-based estimation process, and retrospectives analyses on the accuracy of previous sprints estimates. The new estimation process is applied on a new project, and an improvement of estimates accuracy from 10% to 45% is observed.