Estimation Meetings

What are Estimation Meetings?

Estimation meetings help your team collaboratively estimate the effort required for upcoming work items. Using proven techniques, teams can quickly align on complexity and effort, leading to more accurate planning and better sprint outcomes.

How It Works

1. Create an estimation meeting - Set up a new estimation meeting from your TeamRetro dashboard and invite your team.
2. Add items to estimate - Import work items or add them manually. Each item will be presented to the team one at a time.
3. Vote independently - Team members submit their estimates privately, preventing anchoring bias and encouraging honest assessment.
4. Reveal and discuss - Estimates are revealed simultaneously. Where there's disagreement, the team discusses their reasoning before re-voting if needed.
5. Reach consensus - Once the team aligns, the agreed estimate is recorded and you move to the next item.

Estimation Scales

Choose the scale that works best for your team, such as:

• Fibonacci (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21) - The most popular choice, reflecting the natural uncertainty in larger items.
• T-Shirt Sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL) - A simpler, less numerical approach that works well for high-level sizing.
• Linear (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) - Straightforward sequential numbering.

Tips for Effective Estimation

• Keep discussions focused - Timebox discussion rounds to keep the session moving.
• Estimate relative complexity, not hours - Compare items against each other rather than trying to predict exact durations.
• Break down large items - If an item consistently gets high estimates, consider splitting it into smaller pieces.
• Track accuracy over time - Review past estimates against actuals to help your team calibrate.

Getting Started

To run your first estimation meeting, navigate to your team dashboard and select Estimations > Start Estimation Meeting. You can pre-load items or add them during the session.