How do you use planning poker to estimate user stories in agile?

1 What is planning poker?

Planning poker, also known as Scrum poker, is a consensus-based technique for estimating the effort and complexity of user stories in agile projects. It involves a team of developers, testers, analysts, and other stakeholders who use a deck of cards with numbers representing different units of work, such as hours, days, or story points. The team discusses each user story and then each member secretly selects a card that reflects their estimate. The cards are then revealed and compared. If there is a large discrepancy, the team discusses the reasons and tries to reach a consensus. If there is a small difference, the team averages the estimates or chooses the most common one.

2 How to use planning poker?

To use planning poker effectively, you need to follow some steps and guidelines. Preparing user stories in advance and making sure they are clear, concise, and testable is essential. You can use the INVEST criteria to evaluate the quality of your user stories. Additionally, you should choose a unit of measurement for your estimates, such as hours, days, or story points. Story points are a relative measure of the size and complexity of a user story, based on factors such as risk, uncertainty, and technical difficulty. You should also choose a scale for your cards, such as the Fibonacci sequence, the powers of two, or a custom scale that suits your project. Gather the team in a comfortable and distraction-free environment, either physically or virtually. Start with a user story that is easy to estimate and has a known reference point. Present the user story to the team and answer any questions or clarifications. Ask the team to select a card that represents their estimate and place it face down. Ask the team to reveal their cards simultaneously and compare the estimates. Repeat the discussion and the estimation until the team reaches a consensus or a reasonable agreement. Record the final estimate for the user story and move on to the next one. Repeat the process until all the user stories are estimated.

3 What are the benefits of planning poker?

Planning poker has several benefits for agile project management, such as promoting collaboration and communication among the team members and other stakeholders, improving the accuracy and reliability of the estimates, reducing the risk of overestimating or underestimating the user stories, increasing the transparency and accountability of the project, and enhancing the learning and improvement of the team. This is because the estimates are based on the collective wisdom and experience of the team, rather than on individual assumptions or biases, and the team considers different factors and scenarios that may affect the effort and complexity of the work. Furthermore, the team commits to the estimates and the expectations that they set with the customer and the stakeholder, and they review their estimates and their performance to identify the gaps and the opportunities for growth.

4 What are the drawbacks of planning poker?

Planning poker is not a perfect technique and it has some drawbacks and limitations, such as being time-consuming and tedious, especially if the team has a large number of user stories to estimate or if they have difficulty reaching a consensus. Additionally, external factors, such as the pressure from the customer or the stakeholder, the availability of the team members, or the quality of the user stories, can influence the process. Human factors, such as the personality, the mood, the motivation, or the confidence of the team members, or the group dynamics, such as the anchoring effect, the halo effect, or the bandwagon effect, can also affect the accuracy of the estimates. Furthermore, the estimates can be inaccurate or unrealistic if the team lacks the knowledge or the skills to estimate the user stories, or if the user stories are too vague, too complex, or too dependent on other factors.

5 How to improve your planning poker skills?

Planning poker is a skill that can be improved with practice and feedback. To make the most of it, it is important to prepare well for the planning poker session by reviewing the user stories, doing research, and asking questions. During the session, it is important to participate actively and constructively by sharing opinions, listening to others, and respecting different views. Additionally, it is important to be flexible and open-minded, realistic and honest, and to learn from mistakes and successes. This can be done by comparing estimates with actual results and identifying the reasons and lessons behind them.