Introducing Annoplan: Rethinking Project Estimation at Echobind

I’ve always embraced the challenge of building something new—whether it’s a product, a process, or a better way to collaborate. At Echobind, our curiosity led us to reexamine our internal tools, and one problem stood out as a clear opportunity for improvement: our project estimation workflow.

For years, we’ve told clients that project estimation is one of the hardest things we do—and we’ve gotten pretty good at it. But even with our expertise, the process was eating up more time and energy than we could afford.

The issue? Too many disconnected steps that drained our team’s focus. Estimating a large project required six people navigating between Whimsical for flowcharts, Figma for annotations, and spreadsheets for estimates. And once the estimate was complete, we still had to compile everything into a polished Business Requirements Document (BRD)—adding yet another time-intensive layer to the process.

We knew there had to be a better way. We needed a solution that streamlined the process, preserved the accuracy of our estimates, and allowed us to move faster without compromising quality. Most importantly, we wanted to maintain the collaborative, multiplayer nature of our workflow while significantly reducing the time each individual spent on it.

Enter Annoplan—our new in-house tool that’s transforming the way we estimate.

The Before State: A Fractured Process

Before Annoplan, estimating a project often felt like a chore. We’d lay out user flows in Whimsical, annotate designs in Figma, then track the granular details in Google Sheets. These tools are all great in their own right, but hopping between them slowed us down and left plenty of room for missing context. Sometimes a crucial detail got lost in translation; other times, estimates would drift apart from the original plan. No one was thrilled about this patchwork approach, and it was clear we had to rethink it.

The Breakthrough: One Platform, Unified Vision

What if we could have it all in one place? That’s the question that led us to create Annoplan. It’s a web application that brings our entire estimation workflow under one roof. Now we can:

• Upload Designs and Annotate them Directly: Instead of bouncing between tools, we take whatever we have – sketches, wireframes, or high fidelity design – and upload them. Once we have everything, we can quickly resort the screens and start annotating features in the same interface.
• Create User Stories by hand or with AI: Because each annotation corresponds to a user story, a prompt is shown after every annotation. The user has the ability to write the story manually, but more often than not, we let a large language model take the first pass.
• Collaborate on Estimates: Each team member can input their own estimates, and Annoplan helps us spot discrepancies early, guiding us toward a unified vision. And just like with annotations, we can ask our LLM to take a pass at estimates.

It feels like a breath of fresh air. By removing friction, we can spend more time focusing on what actually matters in the application without worrying that any minor details were left behind.

Bringing Fun Back into the Process

Estimation doesn’t have to be painful. With Annoplan, the experience feels more like a friendly brainstorming session than a tedious chore. You’re simply pointing, clicking, and discussing in one place. The interface is intuitive, and incorporating AI-generated user stories and estimates adds a layer of excitement that I honestly didn’t think was possible in something as traditionally dry as estimation.

Accurate, Efficient, and Ready to Share

The best part for us is the speed. We’ve managed to cut our estimation time in half by consolidating tools. No more scrambling for the right link or duplicating efforts. And when it’s time to produce that final BRD for a client or internal reference, it’s just a few clicks away—easy to update, easy to maintain, and always reflecting our current thinking.

This might sound like a small shift, but trust me, it’s had a huge impact. Instead of dreading the estimation process, we’re embracing it. We’re delivering more accurate proposals, responding quickly to client feedback, and ultimately, working in a way that feels more human and less mechanical.

Looking Ahead and Sharing the Journey

Annoplan started as a passion project during our investment time—an experiment in seeing what could happen if we cared as much about our own efficiency as we do about our clients’. It’s now become a critical piece of how we operate. We’re excited about the future potential, not just for us but for others who might benefit from a more unified approach to project estimation.

A heartfelt thanks goes out to the Echobind engineering team. Your creativity, adaptability, and willingness to try something new turned a spark of an idea into a tangible solution that’s making a difference in our day-to-day work.

We’d love to hear from you, too. What’s working in your estimation process, and where do you still feel the pain? If you’re curious about trying out Annoplan or have workflow pain points that you're looking to solve, reach out. Let’s keep finding better ways to build.