A complete step-by-step guide to conducting effective planning poker sessions for story point estimation.
Planning Poker is a consensus-based estimation technique used by agile teams to estimate the effort required for user stories. It combines expert opinion, analogy, and discussion to arrive at accurate estimates.
Gather the user stories you want to estimate. You can import them from Jira, upload a screenshot, or enter them manually.
Create a new planning poker session or join an existing one using a 6-character session code. No account required for guests.
The moderator presents the current story. All participants can see the story title, description, and any additional details.
Each team member privately selects a story point estimate using Fibonacci cards: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, or 100.
Once everyone has voted, the moderator reveals all votes. You'll see the distribution of estimates from all participants.
If estimates differ significantly, team members discuss their reasoning. The person with the highest and lowest estimates share their perspective.
After discussion, the team may choose to re-vote. This process continues until the team reaches consensus or agrees to proceed.
The system automatically calculates consensus values including median, average, min, and max. The Best Estimate is the median rounded to the nearest Planning Poker value.
Planning Poker uses the Fibonacci sequence to represent story points. These values represent relative complexity, not time:
Small stories - straightforward tasks with minimal complexity
Medium stories - moderate complexity, some unknowns
Large stories - high complexity, many unknowns, may need breakdown
Tip: If a story is 13 points or higher, consider breaking it down into smaller stories. Large stories are harder to estimate accurately and may indicate the story is too complex.
After votes are revealed, estimio automatically calculates several consensus values:
The median value rounded to the nearest Planning Poker card. This is typically used as the final estimate.
The middle value when all votes are sorted. More robust than average as it's not affected by outliers.
The mean of all votes. Useful for understanding the overall team sentiment.
The lowest and highest votes. Large differences (max/min > 4) indicate the need for discussion.
Establish baseline stories (e.g., "a simple login form = 3 points") to help calibrate estimates across the team.
A small story can be high complexity if it involves unknown technologies or complex business logic.
Stories that depend on other work or external systems may require higher estimates.
Periodically review how accurate your estimates were. This helps improve future estimation accuracy.
Create a free planning poker session and start estimating with your team.
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