Planning Poker

David Parsons - Massey University

Planning Poker

Associate Professor David ParsonsMassey University


First developed by James Grenning “How to avoid analysis paralysis while

release planning” The aim of Planning Poker is to create

estimates in a short time and involve the whole team

Planning Poker


Like the Planning Game, Planning Poker is not really a game◦ Simply a way of using game-like activities to

perform some of the tasks of agile planning One significant difference is that in Planning

Poker there are additional ‘pieces’ – the ‘cards’ used to estimate stories

Game-like activity using Cards


The customer reads a story◦ There is a discussion clarifying the story as

necessary Each programmer selects their chosen

estimate card◦ (Or writes their estimate on a note card, if no pre-

printed pack is available) No discussion of estimates takes place at

this stage Once all programmers have written their

estimate, all the cards are turned over

Basic Process - Estimation


If there is agreement, no discussion is necessary◦ The estimate is recorded and we move on to the

next story. If there is disagreement in the estimates,

the team can try to get a consensus If there is no consensus, it doesn’t matter

◦ It is only one story out of many It can be deferred, split, or the lowest

estimate can be taken

Basic Process - Discussion


Everyone in the team participates◦ They have to make an estimate◦ Everyone gains experience

Discussions are automatically triggered by the more problematic estimates

Where estimates are straightforward, the game enables consensus without unnecessary discussion

Everyone Estimates


Save time of manually writing estimates Cards also only have a subset of possible

estimated days James Grenning’s set:

◦ 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 days and infinity As the estimates get longer, the precision

goes down

Pre-Printed Cards


Maximum story size is under 2 weeks if you estimate that a story is longer than 2

weeks, play the infinity card and make the customer split the story

The Infinity Card


Mountain Goat Software◦ 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, and 100◦ online version also includes a .5 card ◦ The ‘zero’ value might look odd but it does not

mean it takes no time at all, rather that is closer to 0 than 1

Mike Cohn◦ 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 (Fibonacci sequence)◦ or 1, 2, 4, and 8

Other Card Sets


As well as the estimation number cards, some packs have additional cards◦ ‘don’t know’◦ ‘discuss’◦ ‘coffee time’ ◦ etc.

You can make up cards that you find useful in your own processes

Additional Cards


0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40 (in 4 ‘suits’) + ‘fast forward’, ‘rewind’ and ‘talk’

The ‘Agical’ card set


One suggestion for maintaining the speed of the process is to use a 2-minute egg timer for each discussion

This may be turned over once more for more problematic estimates but then the next story should be estimated

Speeding the Process


With large teams, where there are many stories to estimate, Planning Poker can be played separately by smaller teams

However they will need to have done some estimating as a whole team first, covering 10 to 20 stories◦ This ensures that everyone is familiar with the

technique◦ Also ensures that subsequent estimates are

consistent between groups

Large Teams


A minor variation on Planning Poker is to use poker chips instead of estimation cards, 1 chip for each story point

Possible to use different coloured chips to indicate different estimation contexts

◦ “we had three team sizes we were considering for the release and we used white, blue and red chips to indicate the base story points and two levels of increment”

Yip, J. (2007)

Variations – Poker Chips


Another variation is to use an on-line version for distributed teams

You can also download versions for mobile phones

Variations – Online

planningpoker.com


Moløkken-Østvold and Haugen (2007) identified some measurable and potential benefits

Haugen (2006) claimed that it improved estimation in most cases, but that it increased estimation error in the extreme cases

Empirical Evidence


Cohn, M. (2005). Agile Estimating and Planning, Addison-Wesley

Grenning, J. (2002). Planning Poker or How to avoid analysis paralysis while release planning https://sewiki.iai.uni-bonn.de/_media/teaching/labs/xp/2005a/doc.planningpoker-v1.pdf

Haugen, N. (2006). An Empirical Study of Using Planning Poker for User Story Estimation, AGILE 2006, 23-34

Moløkken-Østvold, K. & Haugen, N. (2007). Combining Estimates with Planning Poker – An Empirical Study, 18th Australian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC 2007), 349–358

Yip, J. (2007). Hands-on release planning with poker chips. 14th Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (PLOP 2007)

References

https://sewiki.iai.uni-bonn.de/_media/teaching/labs/xp/2005a/doc.planningpoker-v1.pdf

