Environmental Variables

[en-vahy-ruh n-muh nt-ahl, -vahy-ern- vair-ee-uh-buh l]

Definition of Environmental Variables

Factors affecting effort that are not related to the actual Story. These include, but are not limited to, Technical Debt, Organizational Noise, SME Availability, and Team Ability.

Examples

In other words, when estimating Acceptance-Based Stories we need to ignore Impediments caused by Environmental Variables (Organizational Noise, Team Ability, Technical Debt, SME Availability, and others specific to your environment); we ignore the portion of the effort that is based on the Team and the Organization and focus only on the Story’s Intrinsic Difficulty.
However, because of impediments, some StoryPoints are harder than others; some two-point Stories may take more effort than some eight-point Stories – those darned Environmental Variables often get in the way.

Related Terms

Cite This Term

"Environmental Variables." ScrumDictionary.com. Accessed Mar 26, 2019.
https://scrumdictionary.com/term/environmental-variables/.