Story points are used to plan a sprint. They are a honest estimate of how much work and how difficult a task is going to be. If they are used by management, then it turns into a tool to excerpt undue pressure on the team.
> The team isn't judged externally by the story points they burn
Are you really sure about that? Never got a question from the customer why the team couldn't finish as many story points as in the last sprint? Or why during sprint planning the team hasn't committed to a given amount of story points?
There is indeed a learning process. Once the above questions get asked, it is not difficult to see why a team would start to inflate story points.
> The team itself should be the sole consumers of their own story points, so inflating them accomplishes nothing from their perspective.
As indicated by the comment I was replying to, this is not the world we live in.
> The team isn't judged externally by the story points they burn
Are you really sure about that? Never got a question from the customer why the team couldn't finish as many story points as in the last sprint? Or why during sprint planning the team hasn't committed to a given amount of story points?
There is indeed a learning process. Once the above questions get asked, it is not difficult to see why a team would start to inflate story points.
> The team itself should be the sole consumers of their own story points, so inflating them accomplishes nothing from their perspective.
As indicated by the comment I was replying to, this is not the world we live in.