Purpose and Value of Agile Estimation

Estimating in the agile context is an often misunderstood practice, sometimes seen only as a way to predict delivery dates. However, its purpose and value go far beyond that.

While it aids in short-term planning, agile estimating is, above all, a powerful tool for fostering conversation, clarifying the scope of work, and improving shared understanding within the team.

It acts as a catalyst for discussing unknowns, identifying complexities, and ensuring that everyone has an aligned view of what each user story entails.

In addition, the collaborative estimation process empowers the team and helps manage expectations more realistically.

Beyond Predicting Dates: Understanding Scope

One of the primary reasons for estimating in agile is to ensure a common and thorough understanding of the scope of each user story.

The act of discussing and assigning an estimate (whether in story points, t-shirt sizes or another relative unit) forces the team to analyze the story from different perspectives.

Frequently, during this process, significant discrepancies arise between the estimates of different members.

These differences are not a problem, but an opportunity: they reveal misunderstandings about requirements, unfamiliarity with existing technologies, or differing assumptions about complexity.

The resulting discussion to align estimates is where much of the value lies, as it leads to crucial clarification of scope before development begins.

Facilitate Planning and Expectation Management.

While not seeking to create strict long-term timelines, estimates do facilitate near-term planning.

By knowing the team's approximate capacity (their "velocity" if they use story points) and having estimates for backlog stories, the team can make more informed decisions about how much work it is realistic to commit in the next iteration or cycle.

This helps create more achievable sprint plans. In addition, estimates provide a data-driven basis for managing stakeholder and Product Owner expectations.

They allow the team to communicate more objectively why certain timelines may be unrealistic or why adding more work to the current cycle exceeds their capacity, encouraging more constructive conversations about priorities and scope.

Foster Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing.

The agile estimating process, especially when done collaboratively (as with Planning Poker), is an excellent mechanism for fostering communication and collaboration within the team.

It forces members who may have been working in silos to discuss each other's work and understand different parts of the product.

By sharing perspectives during the estimating dis