Planning Poker
Planning Poker is a consensus-based estimating technique. Delivery Teams using the Agile Development Methodology teams can use Planning Poker to estimate their backlog of development. Planning Poker can be used with story points, ideal days, or any other estimating unit.
What is Planning Poker?
The idea behind Planning Poker is that for each User Story, the Agile Team will offer an estimate of size or effort by placing a card face-down on the table in front of everyone.
The Planning Poker cards in the deck have different numbers on them. A typical deck has cards showing the Fibonacci sequence including a zero: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89; other decks use similar progressions. The numbers reflect the the duration/number of days (or any other unit that the team wish to use) to complete the task.
To start a Planning Poker session, the Project Manager / Product Owner or another member of the Agile Team will read the first User Story or product feature.
Once everyone has ‘played’ a card they are all then revealed at the same time. If the values are all the same then the value will become the estimate and the team will move on to the next item. If the values differ then the team will discuss their justification for their values and then each estimator reselects an estimate card, and all cards are again revealed at the same time.
To keep a structure to Planning Poker an timer (such as an egg timer) can be used to control the length of discussion per User Story/feature.
Benefits of Planning Poker
When estimating with Planning Poker, there is a consensus that more accurate estimates are provided due to the different expert opinions.
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