Planning Poker: The Estimation Method for Development Projects
Planning poker is an estimation technique used in agile development methodologies, such as Scrum, to determine the effort required for completing specific tasks or user stories. It is a collaborative approach that involves the entire development team, including developers, testers, and product owners. By leveraging the collective wisdom of the team, planning poker helps in deriving accurate and reliable estimates for project planning.
How Does Planning Poker Work?
The main idea behind planning poker is to encourage the team members to discuss and debate the relative complexity or effort involved in each task. The process usually goes like this:
1. Prepare the Deck: The planning poker deck consists of a set of cards, usually featuring numbers, Fibonacci sequence, or t-shirt sizes representing the complexity of the tasks. The cards are usually numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, etc., highlighting the increasing magnitude of effort.
2. Present the User Story: The product owner or the facilitator presents a user story or task to be estimated. The description should be clear and concise, allowing the team to understand the requirements and complexities involved.
3. Discuss: The team members hold a discussion regarding the user story, considering various aspects like technical challenges, dependencies, and risks. This is an opportunity for everyone to share their perspectives and understand the task in depth.
4. Estimate: Each team member privately selects a card representing their estimate for the task. The cards are placed face-down to avoid influencing each other’s choices.
5. Reveal & Discuss: After everyone has placed their cards, the team reveals their estimates simultaneously. In case of wide discrepancies, the team members have an open discussion, sharing their reasoning and rationale for the estimation.
6. Repeat: The process continues until a consensus is reached. If the estimates are still varied, the team can repeat the estimation process or make use of techniques like averaging or choosing the highest/lowest value.
Benefits of Planning Poker:
1. Team Involvement: Planning poker actively involves all team members, promoting shared understanding and collaboration.
2. Increased Accuracy: By engaging in discussions and sharing diverse opinions, planning poker leads to more accurate and reliable estimates.
3. Avoiding Bias: Planning poker prevents individual biases from dominating the estimation process, promoting objective assessments.
4. Enhanced Planning: With accurate estimates, project planning becomes more realistic, enabling effective resource allocation and scheduling.
Conclusion:
Planning poker is a valuable estimation method in development projects, fostering teamwork and transparency within the team. By incorporating the knowledge and perspectives of all team members, it leads to accurate estimations and better project planning. So, the next time you’re faced with the task of estimating project effort, consider adopting planning poker to harness the collective intelligence and experience of your team.
Reference Articles
Read also
[Google Chrome] The definitive solution for right-click translations that no longer come up.