Planning poker

Planning Poker is a consensus-based estimation technique for estimating, mostly used to estimate effort or relative size of tasks in software development. It is a variation of the Wideband Delphi method. It is most commonly used in agile software development, in particular the Extreme Programming methodology.

The method was first described by James Grenning in 2002 and later popularized by Mike Cohn in the book Agile Estimating and Planning.

Process

Planning Poker is based on a list of features to be delivered and a deck of cards. The feature list describes some software that needs to be developed. The deck contains the following cards: 0, ½, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100.

Planning Poker card deck

At the estimation meeting, each estimator is given one set of the cards.

The meeting proceeds as follows:

• A Moderator, who will not play, chairs the meeting, supported and advised by the Project Manager.

• The most knowledgeable developer for a given feature provides a short overview. The team is given an opportunity to ask questions and discuss to clarify assumptions and risks. A summary of the discussion is recorded by the Project Manager.

• Each individual lays a card face down representing their estimate. Units used vary - they can be days duration, ideal days or story points. During discussion, numbers must not be mentioned at all in relation to feature size to avoid anchoring.

• Everyone calls their cards simultaneously by turning them over.

• People with high estimates and low estimates are given a soap box to offer their justification for their estimate and then discussion continues.

• Repeat the estimation process until a consensus is reached. The developer who was likely to own the deliverable has a large portion of the "consensus vote", although the Moderator can negotiate the consensus.

• An egg timer is used to ensure that discussion is structured; the Moderator or the Project Manager may at any point turn over the egg timer and when it runs out all discussion must cease and round of poker is played. The structure in the conversation is re-introduced by the soap boxes.

The cards are numbered as they are to account for the fact that the longer an estimate is, the more uncertainty it contains. Thus, if a developer wants to play a 6 he is forced to reconsider and either work through that some of the perceived uncertainty does not exist and play a 5, or accept a conservative estimate accounting for the uncertainty and play an 8.

Planning Poker benefits

Planning Poker is a tool for estimating software development projects. It is a technique that minimizes anchoring by asking each team member to play their estimate card such that it cannot be seen by the other players. After each player has selected a card, all cards are exposed at once.

A study by K. Molokken-Ostvold and N.C. Haugen found that estimates obtained through the Planning Poker process were less optimistic and more accurate than estimates obtained through mechanical combination of individual estimates for the same tasks.

Avoid anchoring

Anchoring occurs when a team openly discuss their estimates. A team normally has a mix of conservative and impulsive estimators and there may be people who have agendas; developers are likely to want as much time as they can have to do the job and the product owner or customer is likely to want it as quickly as possible.

The estimate becomes anchored when the product owner says something like, "I think this is an easy job, I can't see it taking longer than a couple of weeks", or when the developer says something like, "I think we need to be very careful, clearing up the issues we've had in the back end could take months". Whoever starts the estimating conversation with, "I think it's 50 days" immediately has an impact on the thinking of the other team members; their estimates have been anchored, i.e. they are all now likely to make at least a subconscious reference to the number 50 in their own estimates. Those who were thinking 100 days are likely to reduce and those who thought 10 are likely to raise. This becomes a particular problem if the 50 is spoken by an influential member of the team when the rest of the team are predominantly thinking higher or lower. Because the remainder of the team have been anchored they may consciously or otherwise fail to express their original unity; in fact they may fail to even discover that they were thinking the same thing. This can be dangerous, resulting in estimates that are influenced by agendas or individual opinions that are not focussed on getting the job done right.

Planning poker exposes the potentially influential team member as being isolated in his or her opinion among the group. It then demands that she or he argue the case against the prevailing opinion. If a group is able to express its unity in this manner they are more likely to have faith in their original estimates. If the influential person has a good case to argue everyone will see sense and follow, but at least the rest of the team won't have been anchored; instead they will have listened to reason.

References

• Mike Cohn (2005). Agile Estimating and Planning (1 edition ed.). Prentice Hall PTR. ISBN 978-0131479418. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)

External links

• Online tool for Planning Poker: http://www.planningpoker.com/
• Detailed description of Planning Poker: http://www.planningpoker.com/detail.html
• Physical Planning Poker card decks can be obtained from:
  • Planning Poker cards from Mountain Goat Software (Mike Cohn)
  • planningpoker.crisp.se
  • www.agilehardware.com
  • Planning Poker Card Decks from agile42.com
  • Planning Poker Decks for four players from wibas.com
  • http://www.conchango.com/store/
  • Planning Poker cards with different estimation values (1, 2, 4, 8, 16)
• Planning Poker Cards ready to print at:
  • www.agile-swiss.org
  • Agile Utilities