WorkshopsWorkshop Day · 15 September · Additional fee
Design Strategy

How to deal with "How much"? The art and science of design estimations with practical tips to make your life easier.

September 19, 2024 10:40 AM
Power Talk
🇬🇧 English
Wisła

About

During the power talk, we'll explore the topic of design estimations and related pre-sales work. There will be two parts of the presentation - the groundwork for estimations (business needs, process, roles, types of estimations, deliverables) and pro tips / best practices on how to close the deal or spot bad apples (based on 10Clouds presales team experience). After the talk, designers and managers will get a bunch of ideas on how to structure or optimize the design estimation process, how to deliver proposals without too much waste, when to propose an additional time for product discovery, and how it might look. Much value guaranteed for design folks dealing with business and those struggling with estimating their work fast and precisely.

Talk by

Photo of Maciej Grątkowski, Design Consultant / Design Presales Specialist at 10Clouds S.A.
Maciej Grątkowski
Design Consultant / Design Presales Specialist at 10Clouds S.A.

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From the recording

Talk in brief

A practical guide to estimating design work in agencies and software houses, where an estimate is part of winning a project rather than an isolated calculation. The talk places designers inside the pre-sales team, from challenging a brief and joining discovery calls to mapping product complexity, selecting a delivery team, and presenting the proposal. It separates reusable project setup from product-specific design, shows how screens and delivery velocity can support a rough estimate, and explains why assumptions, risk, and a sensible buffer belong in the final range. The central lesson is to provide enough expertise to build trust without spending more unpaid effort than the opportunity warrants.

Key takeaways

  1. 01

    Challenge the brief before pricing it

    Questions about the client’s goals and missing constraints create a more credible basis for an estimate than accepting a specification at face value.

    Watch from 4:00
  2. 02

    Treat estimation as collaborative pre-sales

    Sales, an opportunity owner, domain specialists, and facilitators contribute different knowledge between receiving a lead and closing the deal.

    Watch from 6:00
  3. 03

    Balance insight against unpaid effort

    A proposal needs enough discovery to demonstrate expertise, but the team must keep the process lean because the work is not yet funded.

    Watch from 12:00
  4. 04

    Separate reusable work from custom scope

    Recurring activities can become shared estimation building blocks, leaving more attention for the product-specific screens and complexity.

    Watch from 14:00
  5. 05

    Improve estimates through retrospectives

    Early estimates will be imperfect, so teams should compare them with delivery, capture lessons, and build shared speed through repeated practice.

    Watch from 22:01
Read edited transcript highlights

These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.

An estimate begins with better questions

A client brief rarely contains everything needed to understand a product. The useful response is not to jump immediately to a number, but to identify gaps, ask how success will be judged, and show that the team understands the consequences of the project. This makes the estimate part of a trust-building conversation and helps the client compare expertise, not only price.

Watch from 4:00

Pre-sales is a coordinated product activity

An opportunity moves through prioritization, initial framing, team assembly, questions, and an agreed estimation approach. Account people maintain the relationship, an opportunity owner coordinates the work, and specialists contribute domain knowledge. Designers can add particular value in product discovery, facilitation, and the estimation of their own discipline.

Watch from 8:00

Reusable building blocks preserve attention

Many projects contain recurring design work such as kickoff, documentation, structural diagrams, and low-fidelity flows. Recording those activities as shared building blocks prevents the team from reconstructing the same estimate every time. The remaining effort can then focus on the unfamiliar product behavior and risks that genuinely require judgment.

Watch from 14:00

Visual scope can become a defensible range

A designer can map the product’s navigation and key objects, translate that structure into representative screens, and assign different effort to simple and complex areas. Dividing the resulting scope by an expected delivery pace gives a working number rather than false precision. Adding the reusable setup work and explicit assumptions produces a range the wider team can discuss.

Watch from 18:03

Accuracy grows from feedback, not certainty

The first estimates will contain mistakes because they are made with limited information before delivery begins. That is a reason to review them, not to avoid estimating. When a stable pre-sales group compares forecasts with real projects, records what was missed, and repeats the process, its shared knowledge reduces both effort and error over time.

Watch from 22:01
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