Poker Planning – story point estimation

Poker planning is a consensus-based estimation technique mostly used by agile IT development Teams.

Each team member has a set of 15 cards with story point indications ½,1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 (the numbers in the Fibonacci scale until 100), ‘split’ (time for a cup of coffee), ‘?’ And possibly ‘∞’ (infinity sign). 

The Product Owner describes the functionality of the item to be estimated in detail.

Each participant selects the card representing the work effort, and risks the participant thinks are related to developing the functionality.

If ½ story point is given, the development is just a small task, like half a day, and it is something that all in the Team can handle. The more complex and risky the development becomes, the higher the score. Usually, when riching a score of +20, a breakdown of the functionality is needed. When playing the game, all participants must show their cards simultaneously.

The selected estimates are discussed, with the persons with the highest and lowest estimates arguing before a general discussion (also called the Delphi method). The process and the argumentation must be repeated until the Team reach a predefined level of agreement (for example, that you are only an estimate from each other and the majority then decides the outcome) 

Along the way, clarifying questions may arise that require the Product Owner to explain the element further, which helps the Team estimate the functionality more precise.

If you don’t have a deck of cards you can use an app – easily found in the app store.