Give me an ETA! How to do Estimation?

ETA is an Estimated Time Allocation for accomplishing a particular task/project. It is usually expected to be answered before doing any job.

From the Beginner level, all the way to the Team Lead one of the most bugging questions to anyone would be “ Give me an estimated time!”. Whether the question is from the manager or the client it has always put me really in an uncomfortable position. The thoughts of failing to meet the deadline if given a short deadline or to answer the question “why so long ?” for a given longer deadline always crept into me.

Honestly, I was terrible whenever it came to giving an estimate. After some years of repeating similar mistakes and learning slowly from them, I started coming up with a clutch “I will let you know!” and later would give a number of days/weeks/months as an ETA and try to explain my best for the given number. Even though I was never satisfied with how I handled the situation or even with the ETA numbers, somehow it managed to work and I had settled with it.

Later, Realizing how important it was for landing projects during my freelancing journey, I reignited the energy to research and find the right methods for ETA calculations that would make me more confident and also convince my clients. My research and learnings have bought me to the following conclusions.

The mindset to have on ETA is to be clear that “It is just an estimation and bound to be wrong.” However, you want to minimize the chances of failure.

The first tip: You can achieve this somehow by not giving a single number but rather multiple numbers backed with good enough reasons.

"The project can be done in 6-9 weeks(a range rather than a number) considering everything goes smoothly, however being more realistic it should be done 10-13 weeks (another condition) but in worst case scenario running into blockade or serious bug issue it could go 13-16 weeks."

The first number(6–9) is the time that usually takes to complete the task. The second number is in case if run into issues and the Third is for the worst-case circumstances.

The second tip: In order to come up with the numbers in the first place you will need to consider the status of the following things.

1. How familiar and experienced are you with the task/job?

2. Does the task have blockades or external dependencies?

3. Your/Your team's and the client's status of availability and productivity.

4. Segregate the top and low priority jobs and examine their complexity.

The third tip: Look out for experienced and expert help for the ETA. If the task is somehow new for you, there is always someone around you physically, in the phone directory, or on the web, you can reach out to. They might know some roadblocks, challenges, or even simpler methodologies to complete the task that could have a significant impact on the ETA.

The fourth tip: Experts are those who take time to take a pause during and at the end of the project to analyze their assumptions, expectations, and results regarding the project with an open mind to improving, and eliminating the error in the future. Likewise to be an ETA expert, Reanalyze how far/close are you to deadlines, what key factors that you used for your estimation worked well and what didn’t, avoidable and unavoidable resistances, calculated and uncalculated risks like factors.

Hence, providing multiple figures of the estimation time backed with strong “whys” can help you and the client to be confident and realistic in accomplishing the project. The key to success is to keep analyzing your journey and keep improving even when it comes to giving an ETA.

I wish you all the best in your journey of landing and accomplishing a lot of projects. And If you find any takeaways or new ideas from the content do hit that CLAP 👏 .