It staffs' tendencies toward choosing effort sizing measure: Man/day vs story points

Effort estimation is crucial for the successful management of software development projects. The man-day and story points techniques are widely employed by professionals to gauge the necessary resources for a project's completion. This study aims to explore the differences between the man-day and story points techniques in the contexts of experience, flexibility, complexity, teamwork, and performance tracking. The potential distinctions that made impact the effectiveness of each approach is investigated utilizing a survey of professionals who use either of these two techniques. Contrary to expectations, the analysis does not reveal significant differences between the man-day and story points techniques in terms of their applicability to various project dimensions like need for expertise, flexibility, complexity, teamwork and performance tracking. Both techniques show similar results in the contexts of experience, flexibility, complexity, teamwork, and performance tracking. These findings suggest that the choice of estimation technique may be more dependent on individual preferences, team culture, or specific project requirements rather than inherent advantages or disadvantages of the techniques themselves. Given the lack of substantial differences between the techniques, practitioners are encouraged to select an estimation method that best aligns with their team's experience and working style, as well as the nature of the software development project.