Don’t gamble when it comes to priorities

Use these simple Planning Poker decks to break down complex software engineering problems into manageable chunks, and estimate fast and precise. The Planning Poker Card Decks come together with the Business Value Game.

Prices: Planning Poker Cards & Business Value Game

Planning Poker Cards incl. Business Value Game: Euro 4.76 incl. tax/per Deck
Shipping costs: Costs are based on weight

Origins

Planning poker is a variation of the Wideband Delphi method. It is simple, makes fun and results in reliable estimates. (PLANNING POKER® is a reg. trademark of Mountain Goat Software, LLC, Sequence of values is (C) Mountain Goat Software, LLC)

James Grenning wrote the original paper, which is a bit different from Mike Cohn’s (founder of Mountain Goat Sofware) approach. You can find it here.

What is Planning Poker®?

Planning poker is mostly used to estimate the effort or the relative size of tasks in software development. The members of the project team come together and estimate each item in a few rounds using the planning poker cards until the team reaches a consensus on the size of each item or task.

The deck of cards

  • A card deck includes the numbers 0, (0.5), 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, and sometimes a coffee break card.
  • Each team member needs one deck of cards

The planning meeting

  • At the start of planning poker, each estimator is given a deck of cards.
  • For each user story or theme to be estimated, a moderator reads the description.
  • The moderator is usually the product owner or an analyst. However, the moderator can be anyone, as there is no special privilege associated with the role.
  • The product owner answers any questions that the estimators have.
  • After all questions are answered, each estimator privately selects a card representing his or her estimate.
  • Cards are not shown until each estimator has made a selection. At that time, all cards are simultaneously turned over and shown so that all participants can see each estimate.
  • The group can discuss the story and their estimates for a few more minutes. After the discussion, each estimator re-estimates by selecting a card.
  • Cards are once again kept private until everyone has estimated, at which point they are turned over at the same time.

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. It rarely takes more than three rounds, but continue the process as long as estimates are moving closer together.

The Planning Poker Game comes together with the Business Value Game.