Planning Poker® in Scrum brings together multiple expert opinions for the agile estimation of a project. In this type of agile planning, we include everyone from programmers, testers and database engineers to analysts, user interaction designers and more. Because these team members represent all disciplines on a software project, they’re better suited to the estimation task than anyone else.

Planning Poker is an agile estimating and planning technique that is consensus based. To start a poker planning session, the product owner or customer reads an agile user story or describes a feature to the estimators. Scrumpy is a free online planning poker application for distributed agile teams with optional Jira/Confluence /Slack/GitHub/GitLab integration. It runs on mobile, tablet and desktop computers connecting multiple participants in a real-time story estimation session. Absolutely no installation and no registration is needed! To get started with Planning Poker with your team, you can purchase Planning Poker cards from Mountain Goat Software. Or, play Planning Poker online for free. How Does Planning Poker Work? At the start of this agile planning exercise, each estimator is given a deck of Planning Poker cards. Understanding Online Casino Bonuses and their benefits. One of the most important aspects of any internet-based casino is the bonuses it offers. Nearly every casino offers its players the welcome bonus which, as the name suggests, is to welcome them Free Planning Poker Tool to the particular casino’s web site. Planning Poker is an agile estimating and planning technique that is consensus based. To start a poker planning session, the product owner or customer reads an agile user story or describes a feature to the estimators. Each estimator is holding a deck of Planning Poker cards with values like 0, 1.

To get started with Planning Poker with your team, you can purchase Planning Poker cards from Mountain Goat Software. Or, play Planning Poker online for free.

How Does Planning Poker Work?

Planning Poker Tool Online Auctions

At the start of this agile planning exercise, each estimator is given a deck of Planning Poker cards. Each card has one of the valid estimates on it, for example: 0, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100 and infinity.

For each user story or theme to be estimated, a moderator (usually the product owner or an analyst) reads the description. There will be some discussion, where the product owner answers any questions the estimators have. But the goal of Planning Poker in Scrum is not to derive an estimate that will withstand all future scrutiny. Instead, we want a valuable estimate that can be arrived at inexpensively.

After discussion, each estimator privately selects a Planning Poker card representing his or her agile estimation. Once each estimator has made a selection, cards are simultaneously turned over and shown so that all participants can see one another’s estimate.

Estimates will likely differ significantly. And that’s OK. The highest and lowest estimators explain their perspective so that the team can know where they’re coming from. The moderator takes notes during this agile planning session that will be helpful when the story is programmed and tested.

After discussion, each estimator re-estimates by selecting a card. Often, the estimates will converge by the second round. If not, repeat the process until the team agrees on a single estimate to use for the story or these. It rarely takes more than three rounds in agile estimation to reach the goal.

Tips for Planning Poker in Scrum

Here’s some tips for common challenges in Planning Poker:

• Keep discussions productive: Consider purchasing a two-minute sand timer, and allowing anyone in the meeting to start it at any time. When the sand runs out, the next round of Planning Poker cards is played. This helps teams learn to estimate more rapidly within agile planning.
• Break out into smaller sessions: It is possible to play Planning Poker with a subset of the team. It’s not ideal, but a good option if there are many stories to be estimated, as can often happen at the start of a new project.
• Choose the right time to play: Estimating teams will need to play Planning Poker at two different occasions. The first time, teams will usually estimate a large number of items before the project kicks off or during first iterations. The second time, teams need to put forth ongoing effort to estimate new stories identified during an iteration.

You can learn more about Planning Poker in detail in the Mountain Goat Software store or in Mike Cohn’s book, Agile Estimating and Planning.

• Estimation Techniques Tutorial

• Estimation Techniques Resources

• Selected Reading

Planning Poker Estimation

Planning Poker is a consensus-based technique for estimating, mostly used to estimate effort or relative size of user stories in Scrum.

Planning Poker combines three estimation techniques − Wideband Delphi Technique, Analogous Estimation, and Estimation using WBS.

Planning Poker was first defined and named by James Grenning in 2002 and later popularized by Mike Cohn in his book 'Agile Estimating and Planning”, whose company trade marked the term.

Planning Poker Estimation Technique

In Planning Poker Estimation Technique, estimates for the user stories are derived by playing planning poker. The entire Scrum team is involved and it results in quick but reliable estimates.

• Planning Poker is played with a deck of cards. As Fibonacci sequence is used, the cards have numbers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc. These numbers represent the “Story Points”. Each estimator has a deck of cards. The numbers on the cards should be large enough to be visible to all the team members, when one of the team members holds up a card.

• One of the team members is selected as the Moderator. The moderator reads the description of the user story for which estimation is being made. If the estimators have any questions, product owner answers them.

• Each estimator privately selects a card representing his or her estimate. Cards are not shown until all the estimators have made a selection. At that time, all cards are simultaneously turned over and held up so that all team members can see each estimate.

• In the first round, it is very likely that the estimations vary. The high and low estimators explain the reason for their estimates. Care should be taken that all the discussions are meant for understanding only and nothing is to be taken personally. The moderator has to ensure the same.

• The team can discuss the story and their estimates for a few more minutes.

• The moderator can take notes on the discussion that will be helpful when the specific story is developed. After the discussion, each estimator re-estimates by again selecting a card. Cards are once again kept private until everyone has estimated, at which point they are turned over at the same time.

Repeat the process till the estimates converge to a single estimate that can be used for the story. The number of rounds of estimation may vary from one user story to another.

Online Planning Poker Tool Free

Benefits of Planning Poker Estimation

Planning poker combines three methods of estimation −

Expert Opinion − In expert opinion-based estimation approach, an expert is asked how long something will take or how big it will be. The expert provides an estimate relying on his or her experience or intuition or gut feel. Expert Opinion Estimation usually doesn’t take much time and is more accurate compared to some of the analytical methods.

Analogy − Analogy estimation uses comparison of user stories. The user story under estimation is compared with similar user stories implemented earlier, giving accurate results as the estimation is based on proven data.

Disaggregation − Disaggregation estimation is done by splitting a user story into smaller, easier-to-estimate user stories. The user stories to be included in a sprint are normally in the range of two to five days to develop. Hence, the user stories that possibly take longer duration need to be split into smaller use-Cases. This approach also ensures that there would be many stories that are comparable.