<aside> 💡 Use this template to estimate a medium - large sized project.

The general structure is to break down each requirement into tasks, estimate those tasks, then sum up the result.

Note: This is more precise but also more extreme than is usually necessary. It depends on the culture how much time you want to devote to estimating.

After writing this template, I found a few great resources on estimates:

• Estimation technique based on t-shirt size, complexity, uncertainty, expected, worst case
• How to break an estimate down into tasks

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Example Estimate

Project: [Project name]

✅ Final estimate table

| Requirement | Prioritization | Description | Rough estimate (FILL IN AFTER DOING BREAKDOWN) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Requirement 1 | Must have | | | | Requirement 2 | Should have | | | | … | Could have | | | | Requirement n | Won’t have | | |

Fill in after the above table

Must haves:

Must haves + should haves:

Must haves + should haves + could haves:

Range:

This range gives you a sense of the minimum and maximum time the project will take.

When you turn these into milestones, you can multiply by 1.5 for the various other things that extend an estimate like: PTO, holidays, on-call, rolling out the feature, and unknowns.

📝 Estimate breakdown

Make a table for each requirement with the tasks that need to be done.

Give an estimate for each task, then add them up.

Requirement: [Requirement 1]

Total time:

Requirement: [Requirement 2]