MEPX
Chapter 2 of 10All chapters
  1. 1Why estimate
  2. 2Anchors worth knowing
  3. 3Fermi estimates
  4. 4Rounding well
  5. 5Sanity checks
  6. 6Estimating percentages
  7. 7Estimating time
  8. 8Making big numbers real
  9. 9Where estimates go wrong
  10. 10Getting better

Chapter 2 of 10

Anchors worth knowing

Numbers to measure against.

A short list

A storey is about 3 metres. A person is about 70 kilograms. A year is about 500,000 minutes and 30 million seconds. A city block is about 100 metres.

  • A page of text is roughly 500 words; a book about 100,000.
  • A car is about 4 metres and 1,500 kilograms.

Build your own

Collect anchors from your own field: typical request sizes, typical salaries, typical durations. Estimation is mostly having a few reliable reference points.