BUSINESS COMPLEXITY
POINTS (BCP)

RE-THINKING STORY POINTS

Estimation is often difficult, and for software development, it’s even more complex.

Story Points have been used with the intention of making estimates easier, though it requires consideration of several different factors-because story points represent the effort of a story, it must include not only the amount of work but also the complexity of the work and any risk or uncertainty.

XS S M L XL

Story Points follow a “t-shirt size” approach which doesn’t fit everyone it’s not a normalized unit, with many subjective elements, which prevents cross-team performance analysis, objective, and effective continuous improvement demonstration.

CI&T’S BUSINESS
COMPLEXITY POINTS (BCP)

Simplifying and standardizing software development with the ultimate goal of maximizing the chance of project success is what led CI&T to think outside the box.

We created a method to objectively measure, demonstrate and standardize software complexity, called Business Complexity Points or BCP. The BCP framework analyzes software complexity through a business lens. It includes 3 elements that are associated with complexity values.

BUSINESS COMPLEXITY RULER

XS 1 S 2 M 3 L 5 XL 8 BUSINESS RULES INTERFACE ELEMENTS BOUNDARIES Direct instructions, simple formulas or validations. Iterative processes with few phases/steps and no decision points. Iterative processes with few phases/steps and few decision points. — Iterative processes with many phases/steps and/or many decision points. Interface elements that represent business concepts. — Add/remove up to 5 static interface elements in an existing business context. Add/remove up to 5 static interface elements in a new business context. Add/remove up to 5 dynamic interface elements in a new business context. DB and/or UI do not cross boundaries. Reading, writing, exchanging information with a physical device. Remote Business Services exchanging perennial information. — Remote Business Service with ethereal exchange information.

We realized that the stories
always included basic elements representing functional aspects, such as:

  • Business rules, from formula usage through multi-step iterative processes with many decision points.
  • User interface elements, from adding simple elements to a specific form, creating a new form with simple elements, or creating a complex form with several dynamic and sophisticated elements.
  • New business entities that need to be created or handled, or existing ones that need to be improved or handled.
  • Interface to different entities.

In each line, we have the basic functional elements: business rules, user interface entities, and permissions. We call them complexity items.

In each column, we have different sizes: XS, S, M, L, XL. These provide relative complexity, with points assigned to each size according to the Fibonacci sequence.

SIMPLIFY & STANDARDIZE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT WITH BCP

1.

Communication

Pratical and simple to understand.
Allows for a common language among teams.

2.

Normalized System

Pratical and simple to understand.
Allows for a common language among teams.

3.

Comparisons

Pratical and simple to understand.
Allows for a common language among teams.

4.

Best Practices

Pratical and simple to understand.
Allows for a common language among teams.

5.

Quality

Pratical and simple to understand.
Allows for a common language among teams.

THE BCP FAMILY
IS EVOLVING

We're actively developing a more comprehensive evolution of the methodology, designed to capture product complexity in greater depth.
And out of love for the community that shaped it, we're giving BCP back as open source.

Built in partnership with one of the largest financial institutions in Latin America, it's free to use, adapt, and contribute to — including an AI-powered calculator that turns user stories into objective complexity metrics.

Explore the open source version →