Story Estimation

Run collaborative Backlog Estimation
with your remote team

Facilitate discussion and balance the speed of the estimation process with the accuracy required. Choose Whiteboards to enable realistic engagement and collaboration by providing flexible and proven methods for estimating and planning.

More Jira magic for Story Estimation

Work with Jira issues on your digital board

Import all necessary Jira tasks on your Whiteboard and refine them more conveniently during estimation sessions with your team.

Keep your tasks always up-to-date

Forget about manual work. Drag and drop your Jira issues into update zones and see how all fields update themselves automatically.

Place more work items on your board using import zones

Pull more issues at a time onto your Whiteboard with a customizable JQL filter.

Mark dependencies and connections between stories

Connect your Jira epics, tasks, and subtasks with lines or arrows to highlight their importance and reliances.

Work with Jira issues on your digital board

Import all necessary Jira tasks on your Whiteboard and refine them more conveniently during estimation sessions with your team.

Keep your tasks always up-to-date

Forget about manual work. Drag and drop your Jira issues into update zones and see how all fields update themselves automatically.

Place more work items on your board using import zones

Pull more issues at a time onto your Whiteboard with a customizable JQL filter.

Mark dependencies and connections between stories

Connect your Jira epics, tasks, and subtasks with lines or arrows to highlight their importance and reliances.

Why use Whiteboards for your next
Story Estimation session?

Shape library

Make it visual and interactive.

Bring all your stories to the board and estimate as if you were in a room. Take advantage of helpful content on your Whiteboard. Add screenshots, create prototypes, present charts, and more. Effective and fun.

Comments

Keep the discussion going.

Engage all team members in the estimation process by video calling and commenting on your work or mentioning your teammates. Make sure you are all on the same page.

Jira import zones

Reach the consensus. Easily.

Collaborate with many team members on one Whiteboard and keep track of items that need further discussion. Ensure different opinions and points of view are considered.

Line styles

Flexibility for your business.

Whiteboards support you with on-site, remote, real-time, and asynchronous collaboration. Anytime. Anywhere.

How to estimate your backlog items together with your remote team

Estimate 
your Backlog Items

As a Product Owner or Team Manager, you want to ensure that the estimation allows for discussion and maintains a balance between the speed of the process and the accuracy required. If you are a Scrum Master, you need tools that enable real commitment and collaboration while also providing flexible and proven ways to evaluate and plan your work.

The good news is that in the world of Agile project management, several estimation techniques and tools support team estimation. One of them, backed by Whiteboards, is the Magic Estimation method. With the Magic Estimation template, the team gathers on the digital board with user stories, sets the values for estimation (Fibonacci, t-shirt sizes, etc.), chooses the scope of the session (with JQL filter), and finally selects the project and issues to estimate. Jira automatically reflects all updates thanks to the two-way, powerful integration.

The general approach of Magic Estimation is that team members take turns in moving one backlog item at a time and assigning it to the column with the corresponding estimate. Then, the next team member can either place the next item in another column with the agreed-upon estimate or move the just-estimated issue to another column if they evaluate differently. The process continues until all participants reach a consensus and all imported items have been assigned an estimate. 

Once you’ve estimated all items, the results will automatically sync with your fields in Jira. No duplicate work required—pure native Jira experience.

Useful Story Estimation Features

Templates

Out of the box User Story Mapping template, User Persona template + 100 other templates for any ceremony or team activity you can think of.

Export your Jira issues

Bring your Jira project issues directly to your board and collaborate, discuss, and estimate on the spot.

Timebox your session

Keep your session in a time-efficient manner with the timer and keep your team focused within specific time frames.

Bulk actions

Edit, make updates, rank, or transition Jira issues — individually or in bulk via the Update Zones.

Summon the attention

Use moderator features and ask participants to follow your avatar as you move around the board to keep their focus.

Automatic updates

When you make any updates to your issues and finish estimating, all those changes will be automatically reflected in your Jira project.

Magic Estimation on Whiteboards is easy as 1, 2, 3…

Templates

Configure your template to fit the team’s needs

Choose Magic Estimation template from the templates library, then set the values for estimation or session scope, and choose Jira board where you would like to perform the estimation and the issues to be estimated.

People

Run your estimation session with the team

With a set of issues to estimate and configured “Issue table” for selected values — invite the team to the board. Then collaborate, drag and drop issues to the relevant column, and run your Magic Estimation session.

Chat

Discuss and save your estimates

The session moderator can easily keep track of issues that need further discussion. Once you reach a consensus with the team, the results are automatically synced to the fields in Jira.

Whiteboards

Get started with
Story Estimation on
Whiteboards today

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