Warp speed estimation

Identify the smallest story and designate it as the 1-point reference.

Warp speed estimation is a way to quantify scope at the start of a project. There are a few steps to this technique. It all starts with the backlog you’ve derived from your inception. You’ll need to use an electronic whiteboard for this exercise. First, organise the stories into t-shirt sized buckets as you see in the image above. Your t-shirt sizes can be small, medium, large, and extra-large. 

Second, identify the smallest of the small stories. Remember, relative sizing starts with a frame of reference - so this becomes your reference one point story. Now you can get a bit finer grained with your estimates. 

Divide the tshirt-sized buckets further into Fibonacci lanes.

It’s time to divide the t-shirt sized buckets further. The image above shows how you can do this. 

• Divide the small bucket into two buckets of 1 point and 2 points each.

• Designate the medium as 3 points.

• The large bucket represents 5 points.

• Label the extra-large bucket as 8 points.

Move stories into roughly the right lanes and break down the large stories.

This is where you and your team should examine the buckets closely and move stories into what seems roughly the right lane. Remember, it’s not about precision. If it looks bigger than a 3, but smaller than an 8, chuck the story into the 5 lane. Once you reorganise your stories into these new lanes your board will look a bit like the image above. You’ll probably also end up with some big stories. You should break them down and then work with your developers to add them to the right lane. The rule of thumb I follow is to break down anything that’s 8 points or larger. This helps spread the risk across multiple smaller stories. 

Once you feel comfortable with the overall grouping, you can sum the estimates and you’ll have a notion of raw scope. A project manager still needs to do all the contingency planning, but you’ve completed the foundational estimation work.