Once a team has enough cycle time data, estimated completion dates will appear for items in the 'To do' category of their workflow. These dates offer a clear view of when each item is likely to be completed, based on insights from the team's past performance. This helps prioritize work effectively, communicate timelines, and set realistic expectations for feature delivery.

Each item's estimated completion date updates in real-time as you reorder the 'To do' queue, so you always have the latest progress estimates.

Estimated completion dates are not provided for items marked as outliers.

Show or hide estimates

If estimated completion dates help you with planning, you can keep them visible. But if seeing the dates feels stressful, you can easily hide them without affecting the preferences of other users.

1. Click the Settings (gear) icon for the workflow.
2. Select or clear the checkbox for Estimated completion dates.

How completion dates are estimated

Estimated completion dates are based on a team's past performance and the current order of items in the 'To do' category. Here's how Atono arrives at these dates:

1. Review past performance. Atono calculates the team's average cycle times over the last six months (or as far back as the records go, if shorter). This sets the baseline for how quickly items are typically completed.
2. Calculate daily throughput. By summing up the time spent on completed items over the past six months, Atono determines the team's daily throughput—essentially, how much the team completes each day on average.
3. Consider item types and sizes. Items vary in size and type, so Atono calculates averages for each type (bugs vs. stories), and for each story size (XXS, XS, S, M, L XL, XXL, and Unsized). If there's limited data in a size category (fewer than five stories), Atono uses a general average for stories instead.
4. Estimate completion dates.
   • For each item in 'To do', Atono adds up the estimated cycle times of items ahead of it in the queue and divides this by the team's daily throughput to estimate of how many days until that item reaches the top.
   • The estimated completion date is then calculated by adding this "days to top of queue" estimate to the cycle time estimate for each item, based on type and size.