Sizing User Stories

Correct Answer: Encourage the team to adopt more granular breakdown of user stories to improve accuracy in estimation.

The correct approach for a Scrum Master when a team is consistently over-sizing user stories is to encourage the team to break down user stories into smaller, more manageable pieces. This can help improve the accuracy of estimates and ensure sprint commitments are more realistic. Introducing a buffer period or exclusively focusing on high-value stories doesn't address the root cause of inaccurate estimations. Utilizing overly complex estimation techniques, like Monte Carlo simulations, may not be appropriate for all teams and could lead to further complications rather than simplifying the estimation process.

Correct Answer: Conduct a backlog refinement session to reassess and size user stories based on a more detailed understanding of the work involved.

Using a backlog refinement session to reassess and size user stories allows the team to dive deeper into each story, ensuring a more accurate and shared understanding. Asking the Product Owner to unilaterally assign sizes or using a majority vote disregards the principles of collective decision-making and shared understanding that are core to Scrum. Comparing with another team's estimations introduces external variables that may not be relevant to the team's context, diluting the usefulness of estimations for predicting velocity and planning work.

Correct Answer: Conduct a backlog refinement session to reassess and reprioritize the story, ensuring the team fully understands its scope and dependencies to improve future estimations.

Choosing the correct solution involves understanding the root cause of the estimation issue and addressing it directly with the team. The correct answer ensures the team's alignment and comprehension of the user story, potentially adding more detail or breaking it down into smaller stories if needed. The wrong answers suggest alternative actions that could be taken in different contexts but do not directly solve the problem of repeated misestimations. Increasing sprint length or assigning stories to senior members are temporary fixes that do not address the need for the team as a whole to improve estimation accuracy. Similarly, changing the estimation technique might offer a fresh perspective but doesn't guarantee better accuracy without a deeper understanding of the task at hand.