If richness is estimated at the start of a project, what should happen when the project is completed?

When a project begins, a richness estimate helps to predict the volume and relevance of documents that will ultimately be coded during the project. This estimate serves as a benchmark, guiding expectations for the coding process.

Upon project completion, it is ideal for the actual number of documents coded as relevant to align closely with the initial richness estimate. This alignment indicates that the project was accurately scoped and that the richness estimate effectively reflected the project’s content and scope. Achieving a close match suggests that the team understood the materials and anticipated the relevance well, which is a sign of effective planning and execution.

A significant deviation from this estimate might indicate issues such as misjudgment in understanding the data's complexity or scale, or inefficiencies in the coding process. Thus, seeing the number of relevant documents coded match the richness estimate validates the initial analysis and the team's ability to manage the project effectively.