Splitting Estimation

In agile testing, as all are aware, we need to estimate the time for the items that we take to the current sprint.

Even though we usually give one figure either in hours or in days, frankly, there are
so many sub tasks that are hidden in our main test task. So not only should requirement analysis, finding impacted areas, mind map creation, test case preparations be considered prior to the execution and also we must think of the test round that might occur if there was any bug being reported during the test execution.

The above practice will help you decide what went wrong in your estimation for the current task as well as how you can estimate correctly if you get a similar task at a future sprint. Another advantage of this is that you can focus more on your estimated time before you start each work, which enables you to stick to your plan to the letter.

However, during our sprint planning it is difficult to give an exact total time for a task at once. As a corrective action for this, it is recommend splitting your task to the smallest chunks. This will be helpful to estimate more closely to the actual time spent without underestimating or overestimating. I would like to recommend a template that you can use during your spring planning. During the sprint, you can find out in which task you have given incorrect estimations if it has gone beyond the estimation.

This is just a sample template and you can change it as per your requirement and tasks. This template can be customized and used by any team member who likes to estimate accurately without struggling. As a bonus point, I will give you a sample estimation sheet which can be shared with your Dev Team.