Set estimates and plan capacity in story points or time.
Estimate Work in Aha! Develop Using Time or Points
Time vs. story points. How do you prefer to estimate engineering work? Plenty of teams are opinionated about which unit they prefer. There really is no right or wrong answer — as long as you are consistent. But we are glad to give you both options to match the way you work.
You can now estimate work in Aha! Develop using time.
You could already estimate epics, features, and requirements in Aha! Develop using story points — either by entering an estimate manually or automatically calculating it from related records. For instance, you can calculate the estimation for a feature or user story from its underlying requirements. You can also use story points to set sprint capacity and track progress as work is completed. Now with today's update, you have the option to use time as the unit of estimation.
Best practice is to use a consistent method of estimation across you work. So if you have already estimated using story points and decide to switch to time, you will want to update previously estimated items and change the capacity for those sprints or releases.
Let's take a closer look at time estimates in Aha! Develop:
Estimate effort in time
With practice, you can deliver reliable estimations. Get started by navigating to the "Capacity planning" section in your team settings. Here you can select an estimation unit — either story points or time. The default measurement for time is days (d), but you can also estimate in minutes (min), hours (h), weeks (w), and months (m). You can also log time against the estimate as work gets underway.
When estimating in time, 8h equals 1 day, 5 days equals 1 week, and 22 days equals 1 month.
Plan sprint capacity
Once you have selected an estimation unit, sprint and release capacity match in kind. In the example below, our total sprint capacity is 20 days. As we drag and drop features from the backlog into a sprint, the team's available and planned capacity updates. This allows us to visualize capacity for the sprint as well as each team member. It is also possible to track progress in real time throughout the sprint to see how much work remains.
Each new sprint will automatically default to the same capacity as the previous one.
Gain confidence in your ability to estimate how much time and effort it will take to deliver value to customers.
With a little extra attention, effective estimation brings harmony to your planning process. Done collaboratively and improved over time, estimates help you release on schedule — and keep everyone focused on building what matters most.
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