Team Estimation Game

• Start with a stack of ranked story cards. The team will arrange the cards so the smallest size items are on the left and the largest items on the right. Items with the same or similar size should be grouped together in vertical columns (the same place in the left-right direction).
• Place the first (highest ranked) story card in the middle of the table (or in the middle of the board or wall)
• Team members take turns estimating in a round-robin manner. On each turn, the player has two options, as shown below. With both options, the player will explain to the team the reasons for his or her estimate.
  • Take the top story card off the stack and place it on the table based on its estimated size
  • Move a previously placed card to a new location if you think it should be estimated differently
• During a player’s turn, other team members may speak only to ask clarifying questions; they must not express their own opinions during another player’s turn.
• After the last story card has been estimated, each player may take one more turn to move a card if he/she wants to.
• Assign story point values to each group of cards. Even numbered teams use the pseudo-fibonacci sequence (1,2,3,5,8,13,20,40,100), and odd numbered team use powers of 2 (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128)
• You may not have stories for every number in this sequence.
• Numbers represent the relative size/effort estimated for each story. For example, 3 story points is approximately 50% more effort than 2 story points, and 8 points are two times the effort of 4 points.

The Team Estimation Game was originally developed by Steve Bockman

Using color to visualize your backlog

• What aspects of your stories are important for estimation? Discuss this with your team
  • Example: type of materials used, number of pieces, method of construction, etc.
• Download Agile Estimation Cheat Sheet

This cheat sheet was part of the agile42 speech together with Propero Solutions on the Scrum Gathering Shanghai 2010.