Mitch Lacey's Estimation Game Template
Estimate and prioritize your tasks using Mitch Lacey’s tried-and-tested Scrum game — to help your teams work more efficiently.
Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies
About the Mitch Lacey’s Estimation Game template
Reviewing your backlog doesn’t have to be boring — especially not when you’re playing Mitch Lacey’s Estimation Game, a group activity designed to bring teams together and make priorities clearer.
What is Mitch Lacey’s Estimation Game?
First introduced in his book, The Scrum Field Guide: Practical Advice for your First Year, Mitch Lacey’s Estimation Game is a visual exercise designed to help Agile teams prioritize tasks in their project backlog together — similar to other Agile practices like Scrum Poker. Teams can estimate how high of a priority their tasks are by arranging them along a matrix, which helps measure how important a task is and how much effort it will take.
How do you use the template for Mitch Lacey’s Estimation Game?
We’ve prepared a short step-by-step process to help you make the most of the template for Mitch Lacey’s Estimation Game. Let’s take a look:
1. Understand the matrix
When you first open the template in Miro, you’ll see a matrix, which you’ll use to estimate and assign priorities to your tasks. The x-axis represents how big or small a task is — in other words, how much effort it’ll take to complete it. The y-axis represents how high or low of a priority it is — whether that’s based on ROI, business impact, or any other important metrics. Talk to your team about how you want to measure a task’s priority.
2. Use sticky notes to represent your tasks
When you’re ready, use the sticky notes to represent your tasks on the matrix. Write one task per sticky note, such as “landing page design” or “CMS evaluation”. The template comes with a few sticky notes already, but you can always add more if you need them.
3. Arrange your sticky notes along the matrix
Once you’ve written down all your tasks, arrange the sticky notes along the matrix based on their priority and task size. Tasks in the top-left are small and of higher priority. Tasks in the top-right are also more important but take more effort to complete — consider breaking these tasks into smaller goals. Tasks in the bottom right are less of a priority and take more effort to complete — place them toward the bottom of your backlog. Tasks in the bottom-left are also of low priority but take less effort to complete.
Talk to your team about how to best rearrange your backlog. Want a quicker way to decide on priorities? Start a voting session right on your Miro board using our voting tool.
When should you use the Estimation Game?
Play Mitch Lacey’s Estimation Game whenever your backlog has grown large and you find your team feeling overwhelmed. It can help you review your product backlog and recenter your team’s focus on the tasks that matter most. It’s also a great way for developers and product management teams to collaborate effectively and efficiently. Re-play the game anytime you find your backlog getting unmanageable — or refer to past iterations for guidance.
Get started with this template right now.
Project Planning Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Project Planning
A project plan is a single source of truth that helps teams visualize and reach project milestones. Project plans are most useful when you outline the project’s “what” and “why” to anyone who needs to give you project buy-in. Use a project plan to proactively discuss team needs; expectations; and baselines for timeline, budget, and scope. The plan will also help you clarify available resources before you kick off a project, as well as expected deliverables at the end of the project.
STAR Technique Template
Works best for:
Strategic Planning, Prioritization
Find out how to use the STAR interview method to identify the best candidate for the role. Interviewees can also use the STAR technique to prepare detailed and thorough responses during the interview.
Priority Matrix Template
Works best for:
Business Management, Strategic Planning, Prioritization
If you need a little more than a basic to-do list, then you’d probably benefit from a Priority Matrix. The Priority Matrix template is designed to help you determine which tasks are critical so you can focus on the most urgent needs. In a 2x2 matrix, input your priorities based on whether they must be completed with high or low urgency and are of high or low importance. Applicable to project management and personal management alike, use the Priority Matrix template to improve business processes, create efficiency, remove blockers, and reduce operational waste.
Product Backlog Template
Works best for:
Agile Methodology, Kanban Boards, Product Management
Development teams are often juggling many products at once. A product backlog is a project management tool that helps teams keep track of projects in flight as they build and iterate, so you can store everyone's ideas, plan epics, and prioritize tasks. The highest-priority tasks are at the top of the product backlog, so your team knows what to work on first. Product backlogs make it easier for teams to plan and allocate resources, but it also provides a single source of truth for everyone to know what development teams are working on.
Entity Relationship Diagram Template
Works best for:
Flowcharts, Strategic Planning, Diagrams
Sometimes the most important relationships in business are the internal ones—between the teams, entities, and actors within a system. An entity relationship diagram (ERD) is a structural diagram that will help you visualize and understand the many complex connections between different roles. When will an ERD come in handy? It’s a great tool to have for educating and onboarding new employees or members of a team, and our template makes it so easy to customize according to your unique needs.
Blue Ocean 4 Actions Framework Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Decision Making, Strategic Planning
For entrepreneurs, so much comes down to new users—how to attract them, impress them, and convert them to loyal customers. This template, designed by the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, will help you maximize value for you and your customers alike. Using the template’s four steps (divided into easy columns), you’ll easily evaluate your products in more innovative ways and make sure money is being spent in areas that really matter.