2. Map
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
“Stairwayto
Heaven”
Guidelines to proper
estimation: The Basics in 7
steps
“Practice,whatyou
preach…”
How to improve estimating
the sub-tasks?
“TheImportanceof
beingEarnest”
Why do we have to provide
estimates?
“Stepbystep,brick
bybrick…”
The Path ahead…
…and what’s at the end of it.
3. StairwayToHeaven
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
1. Review the Requirements
2. Review the provided assets – all of them, not just the ones that seem relevant at
first sight
3. Define major tasks (features)
4. Break down the work that has to be done, in order to complete a feature:
5. Define what has to be completed step-by-step, in order to implement the feature
6. Check if any of the tasks for a feature could be further broken down to smaller
ones
7. When you defined the smallest possible tasks and cannot further break them
down, start estimating each of the smallest tasks.
T H E B A S I C S I N 7 S T E P S
4. Practice,whatyoupreach
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
1. When you start working on a task, change its status in Redmine to “In
Progress”
2. Set some initial estimate in [hours].
3. Focus just on that task, avoid multitasking.
4. If you need to interrupt work for a longer meeting or lunch, exclude the time for
it from the total time spent on that task.
5. The unit testing counts into the time for completing a task.
6. Keep track on the time spent on similar tasks. See if they take similar number of
hours to process.
H O W T O I M P R O V E E S T I M A T I N G T H E S U B - T A S K S ?
5. Practice,whatyoupreach
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
7. Compare the time spent on the task to your initial estimate for it.
8. Should it deviate with more than 10%, analyse the reason for that:
• Did you use a third party code that might have introduced errors/conflicts to
yours?
• Did you miss some aspect of the task that had to be taken into consideration
when estimating? If so, take a note for the next time, mark it somewhere for
yourself.
• Did the scope change after you started work on the task? – Should this ever
happen, immediately flag your TL or PM for any implications, resulting by
the scope change.
H O W T O I M P R O V E E S T I M A T I N G T H E S U B - T A S K S ?
6. Practice,whatyoupreach
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
Ingeneral:
The way to improving your estimates
is by collecting statistic data – pay
attention to what time does each
minor task actually take you. The
estimate of a major task would be a
cumulative of the estimates for the
minor tasks + the time for unit-
and/or unit integration testing on
your end.
H O W T O I M P R O V E E S T I M A T I N G T H E S U B - T A S K S ?
7. TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
It is important to provide estimates of
the time that tasks take _you_, not of
the time that anyone else advised.
People have different velocity of work;
this is perfectly fine.
W H Y D O W E H A V E T O P R O V I D E E S T I M A T E S ?
8. TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
We need the estimates to be done personally, because this enables us to:
• Plan the whole project better
• Plan the utilization of all team members optimally
• Negotiate with the Client for all the time that we need, to ensure that:
• We all work in a calm environment
• There is No unnecessary pressure
W H Y D O W E H A V E T O P R O V I D E E S T I M A T E S ?
9. TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
Managing the client’s expectations
properly is the key to any project’s
success. For this we need the
assistance of every team member –
by providing us with as accurate
estimates, as possible.
W H Y D O W E H A V E T O P R O V I D E E S T I M A T E S ?
10. StepbyStep,BrickbyBrick…
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
When you commit to following the
hints above, it will take some time,
until you gather the “statistics”
needed for your estimates. Make sure
to keep up and not get discouraged
by the process being time
consuming! :)
T H E P A T H A N D W H A T ’ S A T T H E E N D O F I T
11. Sources
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
StairwaytoHeaven
image
http://freelook.info/
No 1
Practice,whatyou
preachimage
http://likesuccess.com/topics/23
045/practice-what-you-preach
No 2
Theimportanceof
beingEarnestimage
http://www.nileswestnews.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/02/Importa
nce-of-Being-Earnest-REvision.jpg
No 3
StepbyStep,Brickby
Brickimage
http://media.gettyimages.com/
No 4
Dataimage
http://apolloenterpriseinc.com/wp
-content/uploads/2015/02/apollo-
enterprise-data.jpg
No 5
ManageClient
expectationsimage
http://urbanbirken.com/
No 6
12. AbouttheAuthor
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
Earlysteps
Started on the Developer’s
lane
Experience
Took an adventure through the
fields of UX.
Goals
Experienced in QA and QA
management
A Passionate PM
Optimizing processes
With care for people
To achieve an inspiring team
environment
For revealing creative potential
To produce the “Wow!“ effect
B L A G O V E S T A H R I S T O V A
13. Notes
A G U I D E F O R E V E R Y O N E
Ownership
This document is property of
StangaOne1. Reusing it without
their written consent is not
allowed.
