Estimating Famous Landmarks

As humans, we are not very good at accurate estimations.

We are pretty good at relative estimation. We can quickly determine something is twice the size of something else.

But we continue to try and accurately estimate the work we have to deliver into days, hours and minutes!

This false accuracy is a fallacy in planning and can get in the way of delivering valuable work.

By estimating famous landmarks that most people know, we can see just how inaccurate people's estimates are!

Creating a visual representation that shows all the landmarks as the same size makes it very hard to estimate sizes to the nearest meter!

The outcome is that most people are wildly inaccurate when trying to create a precise estimate.

This rapid group exercise is an excellent way to connect everyone to the key learning outcome that we are much better at relative estimation.

Exercise Guidance

• In four breakout groups, invite everyone to estimate the height of the following landmarks(to the nearest metre).

• No cheating!

• If the group struggle to get an answer together, they could opt for consensus through group lightning estimates. Each person writes their guess and shares it with the group after a 3-second countdown.

• Take the average of the group and use that as their estimate!

• After the timer has finished, invite each group to share their estimates.

Exercise Debrief

After everyone has shared their sizes, remove the white overlay box to reveal the actual answers!

Highlight which team has the closest result to the answers.

Discuss the differences in the results and the reflections from the group.

Finally, unhide the "Famous Landmarks - Relatively Sized" frame to show the famous landmarks relatively sized to each other.

Invite the group to reflect on how much easier it is to estimate sizes when you can do it relatively.