How many elephants can you carry? (video link)

 

What would you say to this question? Hm. Gosh… maybe none?

 

But wait. At the 2025 Agile in Nonprofits (AiN) Summit, Rebecca White, Founder of The Content Cove, presented about estimating project complexity, revealing the meaning behind that curious teaser.

 

In essence, an elephant serves as an estimation tool, as do three of the elephant’s friends: the mouse, the snake, and the horse. Together, Rebecca calls them the “estimation animals.” Because work projects vary in complexity, matching an animal to each project can help you understand each project’s scope and then plan for its required capacity.

 

Each animal is distinguished by four qualities of its own, allowing you to concretely categorize your project within a hierarchy of varying complexity and doability. Rebecca explains how to choose the best animal to describe each project. She says that this approach is one of the most straightforward ways for her clients to quickly grasp estimating.

 

As it turns out, your team probably can schedule more than one elephant (wow!) over a certain period of time, as long as you recognize it as such, schedule it in your team’s broader workflow while allowing for its size and complexity, and assign project leads accordingly.

 

This intelligent framework will help you avoid burnout, Rebecca observes. She introduces the  capacity calendar that she uses with her clients and that you can download, a visual map to populate with your team’s workflow, based on the animal that represents each project.

 

Also, she shares that snakes are sometimes deceptive and why even small mice are important. Enjoy discovering the four qualities of each estimation animal and actionable insights from Rebecca’s presentation!

 

Would you like to discover effective ways to estimate your team’s projects? Start by watching Rebecca’s presentation. And then, browse our learning resources at Agile in Nonprofits, including our blog and our publication “A Nonprofit’s Guide to Estimating a Backlog.” Or reach out to us directly.

 

Or inspire others by commenting and sharing your own tips about estimating projects in your workflow!