Pre-Estimate Checklist
Run through this list before you put a date in front of a team or customer.
- Problem: What problem are we solving?
- Users: Who experiences it?
- Success: What measurable outcome defines success?
- Definition of done: Prototype, MVP, pilot, or production?
- Surfaces: Web, mobile, admin, operations, APIs?
- Entities: What important objects exist?
- States: How can those objects change?
- Workflows: What are the main end-to-end paths?
- Integrations: Which external systems are involved?
- Failure modes: What can go wrong?
- AI uncertainty: What behavior is probabilistic?
- Production constraints: Scale, latency, cost, security, reliability?
- Hidden work: Auth, admin, migration, testing, monitoring, support?
- Unknowns: What requires research or a technical spike?
- MVP: What is the smallest useful, safe version?
- Estimate: What is the range, and what assumptions support it?
- Plan: Milestones, dependencies, critical path, ownership?
- Rollout: Pilot, feature flag, alerts, rollback?
- Measure: Did the project improve the original outcome?
The customer usually knows the outcome they want. The FDE has to turn it into a buildable route.