Stage 3 · Lesson 3 of 8
Giving honest estimates
Teams tickets to plan how much work fits in a cycle. Many use story points instead of hours. A story point is a relative size that covers effort, complexity and uncertainty, so tickets are compared with each other rather than timed.
As a junior your estimates will often be wrong, and that is expected. What matters is honesty. Break the work into steps and say what you do not know.
Give a range rather than one hopeful number, and tell people as soon as the estimate changes. Listen when seniors explain why they sized something larger; the reason usually shows a risk you did not see. This habit feeds directly into later.
Common trapgiving a small estimate to look fast, then working late in to hit it.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it
Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- GuideFreeAtlassian Agile Coach
Atlassian · Beginner
Short, practical pages on standups, estimation, sprints and retros, whatever tool your team uses
- GuideFreeThe Scrum Guide (2020)
Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland · Beginner
The original definition of sprint events in half an hour, so the vocabulary makes sense
Practise
Keep handy
Also worth your time
- Shape UpGo deeper
A different way to plan work than sprints, useful for understanding why teams choose their process