Planning poker is a consensus-based relative sizing technique that is used to estimate the size (effort) of the user stories by grouping them under numbers that represent their size. It is first described by James Grenning. In this technique, each agile team member is given a set of planning poker cards. Each card in the set will contain a number from a sequence of numbers. The numbers on the cards will represent the relative size of the user stories (such as story points) and will be used to relatively group the user stories according to their sizes. Following is an example set of planning poker cards.

Fibonacci Sequence And Planning Poker

In this set, we see that Fibonacci sequence is used, which is the most commonly used sequence of numbers in the planning poker. In Fibonacci sequence, the series is created by adding the two previous number together to get the next value in the sequence. In the sequence, the smaller numbers are closer to each other (such as 1 and 2), however there is a growing gap between the numbers as the sequence continues (8 and 13). This sequencing makes it easier to estimate the size of the large user stories without much details and enable making more accurate estimates on the smaller user stories with more details known.

Procedure Of Planning Poker

In planning poker, as all the team members receive a set of planning poker cards, the user story to be estimated in size will be read to the whole team. The team members will then discuss the user story and ask any questions they have. Next, each team member will privately select a card that represent their estimates on the work effort required to complete the user story. Once all the team members make their estimates, everyone shows their cards and if everyone has the same card selected, this means that there is consensus and the agile team proceeds to estimating the next user story. If there are different cards shown by different team members, the team members will this time discuss the reasoning behind the differences. The team members that have chosen the lowest and the highest value may explain why they selected those values to start the discussion. After the discussion, the team members select cards again until they come to a consensus.

PMP And CAPM Exam Tips On Product Backlog

We recommend test takers planning on taking the PMP or the CAPM exam to throughly know the details of planning poker as it is a very important agile technique on estimating. Considering that half of the PMP exam and the CAPM exam is on the agile framework, all test takers should have a solid knowledge on planning poker.