Planning Poker

Business Agility Office

Is an estimation technique used in Agile with the next characteristics:

  • In this Estimation technique, all the people who are supposed to do the estimations, sit in a round circle for the Planning Poker session.
  • Each estimator is having a set of Planning Poker Cards of values: 0,1,2,3,5,8,13,20,40 and 100. These values represent story points or measure in which the team estimates.
  • At the start of the session, the product owner or customer reads out the user story, describing all its features and requirements.
  • After the story is read out, the discussions among the estimators and with the product owner/customer take place. The estimators can ask questions or clarify their doubts with the product owner.
  • After the discussions, all estimators are asked to select one card to estimate a user story. If all estimators give same value, then that becomes the final estimate.
  • If values are different then the estimators giving highest and lowest values explain their opinions and why they chose this value, until a consensus is achieved.
  • A good technique when small no. of items is to be estimated in a small team.
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