e7 estimation — What's this?

— Pro Tip: Add your name to the title.

Is the task about a user-facing feature?

Yes No Don't know

Does the task involve more than one repository?

Yes No Don't know

Does the task involve more than one team?

Yes No Don't know

Does the task require provisioning or changing infrastructure?

Yes No Don't know

Does the task require data migration?

Yes No Don't know

Is the task missing a clear implementation idea?

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Estimation: points

About

e7 is a simple, asynchronous estimation framework.

e7 asks a series of simple questions, adding 1 estimation point for each YES or DON’T KNOW. These questions should not be discussed in any detail and should be answered in less than a minute. Otherwise, it’s an automatic +1.

This gives a range from 0–6 points. As an heuristic, e7 should be good enough for most software teams to make further decisions, e.g. in planning and refinement.

Usage

While you could evaluate e7 manually for each task, you may also use this website to somewhat automate the process:

Bookmark https://morris.github.io/e7 or add it to your task template.
Follow the link in tasks that need estimation.
Fill the form. Pro Tip: Add your name to the title.
Copy the permalink/estimation back to the task.

Background

Reasoning about time and complexity in software engineering is difficult. Software engineering is about automating things that usually haven’t been automated before, therefore it’s an inherently creative process with lots of unknowns and unknown unknowns. Most estimation frameworks rely on research, meetings and discussions, taking significant time from involved parties.

In contrast, e7 focuses on a few immediately decidable characteristics of tasks in order to calculate estimations quickly—without research or meetings.

Status

e7 is currently experimental. You're welcome to try it out with your team.

Any feedback via GitHub is highly appreciated.