Articles

Estimation by definition is choosing a value using the best information available. The value needs to take into account the uncertainty involved. Keeping in line with the principle of Self Organization, the Guide to Scrum Body of Knowledge™
recommends the usage of Planning Poker to estimate tasks and other items. The usage of Planning Poker or Scrum Poker in the context of the Task Estimation Meeting is discussed below.

Estimation using Planning Poker in Agile Scrum is a collaborative and effective technique that teams use to estimate the relative effort of tasks. It involves team members assigning story points to user stories or tasks based on complexity, risk, and uncertainty. Planning Poker fosters team engagement, encourages discussions, and ensures more accurate estimations by leveraging collective intelligence.

Planning Poker is a structured team communication mechanism to arrive at estimates by consensus. The Scrum Master acts as the moderator of the Task Estimation meeting. The Product Owner maybe present as an observer. All the participants are supplied with Fibonacci series or currency like cards that can be used to represent any number up to a certain value. A task or item that is well understood by all the participants is discussed, selected as the base task and a certain value is assigned to it. It is recommended that the value assigned be in terms of an abstract unit like story points or carrots.

In Planning Poker, each team member is assigned a deck of cards. Each card is numbered in sequence with each number representing the complexity of the User Story (or task) in terms of time or effort. The Scrum Team members assess the User Story (or task) to better understand it. Each member then picks a card from his/her deck that represents his/her estimate for the time or effort required to complete the User Story (or task). If the majority or all team members select the same card, then the estimate indicated by that card value will be the estimate recorded for that item. If there is no consensus, then the team members discuss reasons for selecting different cards or estimates. After this discussion, each member picks a card again. This sequence continues until all the assumptions are understood, misunderstandings are resolved, and a majority or consensus is reached. Planning Poker advocates greater interaction and enhanced communication among Scrum Team members. It also facilitates independent thinking by participants, thus avoiding the phenomenon of group think.

Planning Poker balances the problem of balancing group thinking vs individual thinking by having individuals take a stand before every participant’s stand is announced to all, thus avoiding the problem of anchoring. Also it uses relative estimation rather than absolute estimation due to the tendency of humans to be better at the former. Planning Poker is usually classified as a variant of the wide-band Delphi method

Estimation by definition is choosing a value using the best information available. The value needs to take into account the uncertainty involved. Keeping in line with the principle of Self Organization, the Guide to Scrum Body of Knowledge™
recommends the usage of Planning Poker to estimate tasks and other items. The usage of Planning Poker or Scrum Poker in the context of the Task Estimation Meeting is discussed below.

Planning poker is a collaborative estimation technique that leverages the collective wisdom of the team to produce more accurate estimates for user stories. By using a deck of cards with values representing effort or complexity, team members independently select their estimates for a given task, then reveal them simultaneously.

Planning Poker is a structured team communication mechanism to arrive at estimates by consensus. The Scrum Master acts as the moderator of the Task Estimation meeting. The Product Owner maybe present as an observer. All the participants are supplied with Fibonacci series or currency like cards that can be used to represent any number up to a certain value. A task or item that is well understood by all the participants is discussed, selected as the base task and a certain value is assigned to it. It is recommended that the value assigned be in terms of an abstract unit like story points or carrots.

In Planning Poker, each team member is assigned a deck of cards. Each card is numbered in sequence with each number representing the complexity of the User Story (or task) in terms of time or effort. The Scrum Team members assess the User Story (or task) to better understand it. Each member then picks a card from his/her deck that represents his/her estimate for the time or effort required to complete the User Story (or task). If the majority or all team members select the same card, then the estimate indicated by that card value will be the estimate recorded for that item. If there is no consensus, then the team members discuss reasons for selecting different cards or estimates. After this discussion, each member picks a card again. This sequence continues until all the assumptions are understood, misunderstandings are resolved, and a majority or consensus is reached. Planning Poker advocates greater interaction and enhanced communication among Scrum Team members. It also facilitates independent thinking by participants, thus avoiding the phenomenon of group think.

Planning Poker balances the problem of balancing group thinking vs individual thinking by having individuals take a stand before every participant’s stand is announced to all, thus avoiding the problem of anchoring. Also it uses relative estimation rather than absolute estimation due to the tendency of humans to be better at the former. Planning Poker is usually classified as a variant of the wide-band Delphi method