1

Identify a Subset of the Scenario List

• Open the scenario list from the project portal. For each of the highest priority scenarios, determine the appropriate developer or development group to provide an estimate.
• Provide estimates for enough of the highest priority scenarios to provide options for the business analyst.
• Provide estimates for enough scenarios to encompass approximately twice the average velocity.

2

Create Implementation Estimates

• Work with the developers to do a rough order of magnitude estimate (ROM) of the complexity of each scenario. Many projects can use the following heuristic. If the work item requires a half dozen or less 1-2 day development tasks to implement, choose 1. If the work item requires between a half dozen and a dozen 1-2 day development tasks to implement, choose 2. If it is larger than this, choose 3 and consider splitting the scenario. It is important to keep the rough order of magnitude estimates relative. That is, a scenario with a rough order of magnitude of 2 should be approximately twice as big as another with a ROM of 1.
• Use a rough order of magnitude of 0 for trivial scenarios. Group together these smaller work items until they are big enough to be a 1.
• If further elaboration is necessary, work with the business analyst and the developers to add more detail to the scenario. Revise the rough order of magnitude estimate if needed.
• Resynchronize the scenario list to publish/reflect these estimates.

3

Identify Special Needs

• Work with the developers to identify risks that can delay or prevent successful completion of the work required for realizing the scenarios, such as knowledge deficiencies and third-party software dependencies. Create a risk work item describing any identified risks.
• Communicate any special needs that a scenario might have. Look for potentially overloaded developers or dependencies that might affect the scheduling.

The highest priority scenarios have estimates that indicate their complexity.

The updated scenario list is published to the project portal.

Special resources, risks, or constraints associated with realizing a scenario are communicated and if necessary, recorded in the scenario work item.