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Bugs and unintentional design deficiencies get zero story points at my job. It's actually something I fought for because it's faux-progress - it's work that's actually a part of the original (likely underestimated) story someone already earned points for.

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Everyone has a different take on story points, but the original idea was for them to record _effort_, not value.. more story points are actually worse. Delivered value is better. So digging a ditch and filling it in would get a bunch of story points but have zero value.

But managers want to look at the numbers they have, which is story points.

Doesn't that make it impossible to use story points for estimating effort and ensuring people aren't overcommitted?

There's no such thing for us. We don't work in "sprints". We have a giant list of things to do. If you need something to do, you take something off the top of the pile and do it. When you're done, however long it takes, you take another thing off the top and work on that.

What purpose do the story points serve, then?

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