What is Planning Poker: Master Agile Estimation

Imagine your team is stuck in a cycle of endless discussions, struggling to agree on project timelines. This is when the Planning Poker can be highly beneficial, a game-changing technique that can streamline your estimation process. But What is Planning Poker, and why is it so impactful?

In this blog, we will uncover What is Planning Poker and how it can help your team excel in Agile estimation. By the end, you'll understand why this technique is a favourite among Agile teams and how it can bring clarity and precision to your project planning. Ready to transform your estimation process? Let's dive in!

Table of Contents 

1) Understanding What is Planning Poker 

2) How Does Planning Poker Work?

3) Benefits of Planning Poker 

4) Drawbacks of Planning Poker 

5) Who Participates in Planning Poker?

6) What is the Goal of Planning Poker?

7) Conclusion 

Understanding What is Planning Poker 

Planning Poker is a consensus-driven technique for agile estimation. It provides a fun and engaging way for teams to assign relative estimates to planned work.

To start a Planning Poker session, the product owner or customer introduces a user story or describes a feature to the estimators. Each estimator is equipped with a physical or virtual deck of cards. These Planning Poker cards display values like 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, and 100, following the modified Fibonacci sequence. These values represent story points, ideal days, or other units used by the team for estimation.

The estimators discuss the features, asking the product owner any necessary questions. After a thorough discussion, each estimator privately selects a card to represent their estimate. The estimators then reveal their cards simultaneously. 

A Brief History of Planning Poker

Planning Poker was introduced by James Grenning in 2002 as an innovative estimation technique for agile software development. It has achieved widespread popularity after being featured in Mike Cohn's book, "Agile Estimating and Planning," published in 2005. The method was inspired by the Wideband Delphi technique, which was established by the RAND Corporation in the mid-20th century.

Over the years, Planning Poker has become a staple in the agile community, widely used by software development teams around the world to estimate the size of user stories and plan iterations and releases.

How Does Planning Poker Work?

Planning Poker® brings together stakeholders from various departments within the organisation to reach a consensus on the estimated effort required for several backlog initiatives. In an agile software organisation, stakeholders can include a Product Owner, Developers, User Experience (UX) Designers, QA Testers, and Product Managers, among others.

a) Step 1: Hand out the Cards 

Participants receive identical decks of cards (or chips), each featuring a different number. A common sequence involves doubling each number: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64. Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat Software, who popularised Planning Poker for agile development, recommends the sequence 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, and 100. 

Such decks feature strategic number intervals to assist participants in reaching a consensus estimate for each story. Providing too many options—such as each number from 1 to 50—would make the process inefficient.

b) Step 2: Read the Story 

In this step, the Product Owner, or possibly a Product Manager reads each story aloud to the group.

c) Step 3: Discuss 

Once everyone has heard the story, the group discusses it. Participants describe how they envision tackling the work, how many estimated individulas would be involved, which skill sets will be required, and any obstacles they foresee slowing progress. The group also uses this time to ask questions about the story.

d) Step 4: Estimate and Share 

After everyone has had their say and any questions have been answered, each participant selects a card from the deck to indicate their estimate of story points. Once everyone is prepared, they all reveal their chosen cards at the same time. 

The higher a participant’s card, the more difficult they estimate the story will be to complete.

e) Step 5: Work Towards Consensus 

If all participants reveal the same card, that number becomes the consensus, and the group moves on to the next story.

If the cards differ, the group continues discussing the story. Those with higher, or lower estimates rather than the rest of the group explain their reasoning and try to persuade their colleagues to see their perspective.

After this new round of discussion, everyone reviews their cards again and either keeps their previous choice or selects a new one. All participants then reveal their cards simultaneously once more.

Benefits of Planning Poker 

The primary benefit of Planning Poker® is that it leads to more accurate team estimates. Accurate estimates are crucial for the sprint planning process, as they provide both your team and stakeholders with a realistic timeline for task completion. Here are a few additional ways Planning Poker can benefit your Agile team: 

a) Inclusive Participation: Every member of your development team is important, and this process gives them the opportunity to contribute their insights. This can aid team members to stay more engaged with their work.

b) Collaborative Discussion: During the Planning Poker process, the development team has the chance to discuss user stories before any work begins. This ensures everyone is on the same page about how to tackle certain user stories, regardless of who is assigned to them.

c) Relative Task Estimates: When your team uses story points to represent the numbers on their Planning Poker cards, it becomes easier to understand the effort required for specific tasks relative to others in the pipeline. For instance, a user story with a Planning Poker estimate of 2 will be much easier to complete than one with an estimate of 40.

Drawbacks of Planning Poker 

Here is a list describing the drawbacks of Planning Poker that are important to understand: 

a) Reaching a consensus can sometimes give the team a false sense of confidence. They might still lack crucial information, leading to inaccurate estimates.

b) A dominant person in the group can unduly influence other participants. If not managed carefully, this can result in estimates driven by force of will rather than true consensus.

c) Research indicates that group estimates tend to be more optimistic than those made by individuals in isolation. Consequently, the discussion phase of a Planning Poker meeting can lead to the team convincing itself that it can achieve more in less time than is actually feasible.

Who Participates in Planning Poker?

Planning Poker involves the entire Agile team, including Product Owners, Testers, Developers, and other relevant stakeholders. Everyone collaborates to estimate the effort required for completing user stories, ensuring diverse perspectives.

What is the Goal of Planning Poker?

The goal of Planning Poker is to achieve consensus on effort estimates for tasks, fostering team alignment and improving sprint planning accuracy while minimising biases in decision-making.

Conclusion 

In conclusion, by comprehending What is Planning Poker, you can explore a transformative Agile estimation tool. By encouraging collaboration and valuing every team member's input, it brings clarity and accuracy to project planning. Curious to see the impact? Explore this tool and revolutionise your team's estimation process!

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