Story Points explained - Part 5: The Poker

If you are somewhat familiar with Agile you've probably heard the term "Planning Poker". If not, than the best time to hear about it is now.

Planning Poker is a way to:

• Estimate

• Clarify user stories

• Get to the same understanding as a team

• Eliminate extremes (both highs and lows)

• Cut chatter and over-analysis

As you can see there are plenty of benefits in doing this technique. Some of the disadvantages of Planning Poker:

• Can take a long time to estimate a high volume of items, so it's a no go for long term planning

• People are uncomfortable at first especially if they are used to estimate only their own effort

• The technique requires a very good facilitator, otherwise discussions can be very lengthy

So how do you do a Planning Poker session.

First of all you prepare the stories. You can use a wide array of online tools, or you can have decks of cards at the ready.

Ideally you would also have a few references at the ready. People often ask about references during these sessions.

We estimate:

• Complexity

• Volume

• Uncertainty

We will use Planning Poker cards.  Cards will usually have modified Fibonacci sequence on them: 0, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, 200, ?. We use the Fibonacci sequence, because it's a sequence that takes into account natural progression. This makes it ideal for estimating complexity.

The rules are easy:

1. The story is presented to the group.

2. When the group has enough information we start the estimation session.

3. Everyone selects a card for themselves.

4. They show the cards at the same time.

5. If there are discrepancies in the numbers, only the smallest and the highest talk.

6. Then the group votes again.

7. We repeat this process at most 3 times.

8. If we still have discrepancies when estimating the 3rd time, we can go either for:

   1. The majority

   2. An average

   3. The highest score

Step 8 is left for the team.

What does the facilitator do during an estimation session?

First of all they make sure that everything is ready for the session itself. The room, the cards, the PO has the stories.

After the story is presented, they ask the members: Do we have enough information to estimate?

If the answer is no, then the facilitator invites the guests to ask questions.

After all clarifications have been made, then they ask the group to select their vote. Then they make sure that others keep silent while the highest and the smallest one have argued their side.

All is done to ensure that the session reaches its intended purpose. In time, teams get used to the technique. Maybe in the beginning they will estimate no more than 3-5 User Stories in a Poker session, but as time passes, they become more accustomed to this way of working and they can reach up to 12-15 User stories estimated per session.