Wall estimation
Description
The technique combines visual management and relative estimation. The team arranges the stories horizontally from smallest to largest; the Product Owner arranges them vertically by priority. The result is a two-dimensional map that shows both the size and the priority of each story at the same time.
How to apply it
The following images illustrate the usual procedure:
- The team places the stories on the wall or surface, from smallest (left) to largest (right). Stories of similar size go in the same vertical column.
- The team briefly discusses whether any story seems misplaced: the conversation sparked by disagreement is as valuable as the final estimate.
- The Product Owner arranges the stories within each column vertically by priority, with the most important ones at the top.
- The final result can be used directly as the basis for the first sprints: the stories in the upper-left quadrant (high priority, small size) are the most obvious candidates.
When to use it
- To estimate and prioritize large backlogs quickly: with practice, a team can estimate 50–80 stories in under two hours.
- At the start of a project, as an alternative to story-by-story planning poker.
- When the team is large and group planning poker would be very slow.
In remote teams
In digital format, it can be replicated with collaborative whiteboard tools (Miro, FigJam): each person drags the story cards to the position they consider correct on the horizontal axis, the team discusses any disagreements, and the Product Owner arranges them vertically.
Common mistake
Seeking precision instead of relative order. Wall estimation does not produce exact numbers: it produces a relative ordering of sizes. Trying to make each column represent a specific number of story points during the session drags out the process without improving the quality of the estimate. The value lies in knowing that story A is smaller than B and larger than C, not in whether it is worth exactly 3 or 5 points.
Resources
📄 Técnicas de estimación ágil: tres estrategias [Agile estimation techniques: three strategies]Scrum Manager Blog · Jul 2023 · in Spanish
See also
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