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Estimating Work Requests

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Estimating work requests can be difficult when you do it for the first time or when you have no prior history from which to draw.

I typically use hourly estimates, usually in two-hour increments. I can't recall using an estimate of anything larger than 16 hours. I try to break work requests down into smaller segments if I think I will exceed that 16-hour limit.

Some people use a "T-shirt sizing" estimate, where they assign arbitrary S, M, L, XL, and XXL to work requests. Other people use a numerical sizing estimate, where they assign arbitrary numbers (such as the Fibonacci sequence of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, and so on), but those estimates don't necessarily translate to hours. I find both of these systems a bit too arbitrary for my use (although I did use a T-shirt sizing estimate once for a project that I had to quickly put together where I didn't feel comfortable about knowing the project's full set of work requests).

In future posts, I will discuss how I assign, schedule, and track work requests to increase my efficiency.

-- Paul

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