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¶ Effort Estimation
¶ What it is
Effort estimation is to evaluate the total efforts of completing a project. The estimation is created after receiving the requirements. The content of the estimation usually includes:
- Scope of the project and assumptions.
- Rough timeline.
- Team structure of all the teams that need to be involved,
- Total efforts based on the person-days of each team role and the number of sprints of each team.
¶ Why it is useful
An accurate effort estimation represents a project's rough timeline and cost and the team resources that need to be invested. Thus it helps the stakeholders to decide if it is feasible and worth taking the project based on the current team workload.
¶ When to use it
The effort estimation is provided when a potential project comes. The key members, including the project manager and design and development team lead, should analyse and understand the requirements as much as possible and deliver the estimation.
¶ How is it done
- Gather the team to go through the user stories in the backlog jointly.
- Go through story by story, explaining the story and allowing asking clarifying questions.
- Ask the design and development team to estimate the efforts per story based on hours or story points.
- After going through all stories, review them again and make adjustments as needed.
- Where possible, reference past work and those actualised efforts as a basis for a reality check.
¶ Do's & Don't
Do's
- Review and estimate on a user story level.
- Ensure everyone has the same understanding of the story.
- Reference past efforts to check your estimation.
Don't
- Don’t be over-optimistic. Ask the team for conservative or pessimistic estimations.
¶ Tools needed
¶ Example
