http://www.planningpoker.com/detail.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_poker
- The goal in planning poker is to arrive at a shared & understood estimate for desired capabilities in a short and inexpensive manner.??
- It provides a comparative view of the technical complexity of delivering desired capabilities.
- It is not to derive an estimate that will withstand all future scrutiny.
- Sprint & Iteration planning then uses these estimates coupled with the business priorities in order to select scope.
How does planning poker work?
- An overview of a given user story (or capability / feature) is provided. The team is given an opportunity to ask questions and discuss to clarify assumptions and risks.
- Each individual lays a card face down representing their estimate.
- Estimates should cover the full technical scope including design, discovery, development, and unit testing.
- Units used vary – they can be days duration, ideal days or story points.
- Everyone calls their cards simultaneously by turning them over.
- People with high estimates and low estimates are given a 'soap box' to offer their justification for their estimate and then discussion continues.
- After the soap box discussion, we repeat the estimation process (another round of poker) until a consensus is reached.
- In many cases, the estimates will already converge by the second round. But if they have not, continue to repeat the process. The goal is for the estimators to converge on a single estimate that can be used for the story.?? Again, the point is not absolute precision but reasonableness.
Why Planning Poker?
- Planning poker brings together multiple expert opinions to do the estimating.
- A lively dialogue ensues during planning poker, and estimators are called upon by their peers to justify their estimates.
- Studies have shown that averaging individual estimates leads to better results as do group discussions of estimates.