Do story points in Scrum always use the Fibonacci sequence?

No. But Fibonacci offers some distinct benefits.

The Fibonacci sequence is the go-to solution for many Scrum teams because it allows for relative sizing while still being a numeric measurement. It has two key advantages:

  1. Keeping story points measured in numbers is advantageous because it is then easier to calculate a team's velocity.
  2. The numbers have distinct relationship with each other making relative sizing more intuitive. The Fibonacci sequence increases such that each number is the sum of the previous two number.

Non-numeric options are still possible, and one of the most popular is using t-shirt sizing, like small, medium and large. Lean more about using story points or learn other essential Scrum terms.

This question comes from the FAQ section of the Everyday Scrum guide.

Related FAQs

Agile story points

What are story points?

They aren’t absolute measurements like hours or days but measure the amount of work a PBI takes relative to other PBIs. Typical measurements include using Fibonacci numbers or t-shirt sizes.

Learn to use story points and explore the essential Scrum glossary.

Are Scrum story points measured in hours?

In Scrum, you are not measuring work in absolute terms like hours spent or lines of code to be written. Two reasons for this:

  1. Not everyone works at the same pace or has the same set of expertise and experience.
  2. Until you do the job, these are unknown and, at best just guesses.

The problem with absolute sizing using hours is you begin to measure the people, not the work. Relative sizing measures the new work against past work shared by the whole team. Instead, the work is sized relative to past work already completed. So when looking at a new user story, the team asks, “Is this user story A most similar to this past user story B or this past user story C?”

Learn other essential Scrum terms.

Do story points in Scrum always use the Fibonacci sequence?

The Fibonacci sequence is the go-to solution for many Scrum teams because it allows for relative sizing while still being a numeric measurement. It has two key advantages:

  1. Keeping story points measured in numbers is advantageous because it is then easier to calculate a team's velocity.
  2. The numbers have distinct relationship with each other making relative sizing more intuitive. The Fibonacci sequence increases such that each number is the sum of the previous two number.

Non-numeric options are still possible, and one of the most popular is using t-shirt sizing, like small, medium and large. Lean more about using story points or learn other essential Scrum terms.

What is velocity in Scrum?

This measurement allows the product owner to forecast when future features will be ready. It is calculated by averaging how many points the team has complete over the past few sprints.

Learn to forecast in Scrum using velocity and explore the essential Scrum glossary.

Related Posts

A Tale of Two Roles: Product Owner vs. Scrum Master
Scrum Marketing
A Guide to Agile Writing
How to use Scrum to get your home projects DONE.
3 Takeaways After Writing a 6,000 Word Scrum FAQs
How can I use Scrum to manage my personal or professional development?
Agile Homeschooling
Is Scrum a methodology or a framework?
Scrum glossary and terminology cheat sheet
Learn how to apply Scrum to any type of work.
Freedom and Flexibility
Scrum vs. Agile.
A How to Guide for Writing Acceptance Criteria with Examples
What is a Scrum Development Team?
The role of the sprint goal in Scrum
How do I keep my team focused on the right work?
Getting work done as a team.
How a Scrum backlog increases team effectiveness
What is a sprint in Scrum?
What's the difference between incremental and iterative development?
How To Align The Scrum Values With Your Organizational Culture
Why does Scrum have so many meetings?
Can the Scrum Master and Product Owner be the same person?
Learn to forecast progress in Scrum
How to use story points in Scrum?
Learn to write user stories in Scrum
What is the definition of done in Scrum?
What is a product owner?
What is a Scrum Master?
What are the roles in Scrum?
How is a scrum master different than a project manager?
What if I don't have all the roles in Scrum?
Who attends each Scrum meeting?
What is a sprint review in Scrum?
How to do sprint planning in Scrum?
How does backlog refinement work in Scrum?
Keep your team in sync with a daily standup in Scrum.
How to conduct a retrospective in Scrum?
Scrum: expectations vs. reality
Is Scrum hard to learn?
What are the pros & cons of scrum?
What is the definition of Scrum?
Why use Scrum?