5e: Admin Onboarding - Item Workspace -Right Bar part 2: Point Estimates

Some types of work benefit greatly from the concept of point estimation.

Estimation of effort helps teams assess if planned work is reasonable or not. As a general rule, there are 2 types of estimation, Effort and Time. We will discuss Effort estimation here:

Effort Points
Effort points is an arbitrary measure that the team agrees on and is relative to the team who is doing the estimation. This is critical to interpreting effort points correctly. Different teams are comprised of different levels of expertise, and what might represent one level of effort for one team is different for another team.

Effort points are often represented by the idea of numbers (such as 1-low, 5-medium 10-large, or by employing a Fibonacci scale of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc.). Whatever method is used, remember that estimates are relative to each team, so one team's "3" shouldn't be compared to another team's "3."

It's also important to note that effort points aren't meant to approximate back to a certain number of days or hours. Again, they are a relative measure of effort.

Effort points are especially valuable when you don't yet know who is going to do the work. A task that is estimated to be larger effort - say an "8" - that is assigned to a senior person will take less time than for a junior person assigned to the same task.

When you do know who will do the work, time estimation tends to be more helpful.

See our Project Management Principals and Best Practices articles for more information on best practices with Point Estimation.