What Is Planning Poker?
Planning poker, also called Scrum poker, is a consensus-based technique agile teams use to estimate the effort of upcoming work. Each team member privately picks a card that represents their estimate, all cards are revealed at the same moment, and the team discusses any differences until it settles on a shared number. It is quick, it involves everyone, and it surfaces hidden assumptions early.
Where planning poker comes from
James Grenning described the technique in 2002, building on the Wideband Delphi method of collecting independent estimates and then discussing them. Mike Cohn later popularized it through his book Agile Estimating and Planning, and it became a standard practice in Scrum teams. The playing-card format is just a convenient way to keep estimates hidden until everyone is ready.
How a planning poker round works
- Present the story. The product owner or facilitator reads the user story and answers questions about scope and acceptance criteria.
- Discuss briefly. The team clarifies unknowns, dependencies and risks. The goal is shared understanding, not a detailed design.
- Vote privately. Every estimator chooses a card without showing it to anyone else.
- Reveal together. Once everyone has voted, all cards are shown at the same time.
- Talk about the outliers. If the numbers differ, the people with the lowest and highest estimates explain their thinking. They often know something the rest of the team does not.
- Vote again. Repeat until the estimates converge or the team agrees on a value, then record it and move to the next story.
Which deck should you use?
Most teams use a Fibonacci-style sequence such as 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, because the growing gaps between numbers reflect growing uncertainty in larger items. Our guide to Fibonacci story points explains the reasoning in detail. Other teams prefer T-shirt sizes (XS to XXL) for coarse, early estimates; see T-shirt sizing in agile for when each approach fits. Special cards are common as well: a question mark for āI do not have enough informationā and a coffee cup for āI need a breakā.
Why the simultaneous reveal matters
If people say their estimates out loud one after another, the first number spoken tends to pull everyone else toward it. This is the anchoring effect, a well-documented cognitive bias. Senior team members and loud voices make it worse, because colleagues hesitate to contradict them. Hiding the votes until everyone has chosen keeps each estimate independent, so disagreements show up honestly instead of being smoothed over. Those disagreements are the most valuable output of the session.
Tips for better sessions
- Estimate relative to a reference story the team already understands, rather than converting to hours.
- Timebox discussion. If a story needs more than two or three rounds, it probably needs to be split or researched first.
- Let everyone who will do the work vote, and keep observers out of the voting.
- Do not average the numbers. Discuss the spread and choose a value the team can stand behind.
- Keep the session short. Estimating a few well-prepared stories beats grinding through an entire backlog.
Frequently asked questions
Who invented planning poker?
James Grenning described the technique in 2002. Mike Cohn later popularized it through his book Agile Estimating and Planning and his work with Mountain Goat Software.
How many people should take part in a planning poker session?
Everyone who will actually build the work should estimate. Teams of three to nine people work best. Larger groups slow the discussion down and are usually better split into smaller teams.
What do the numbers on the cards mean?
They are story points: a relative measure of effort, complexity and uncertainty. A story estimated at 8 is meant to be roughly twice the size of a story estimated at 4, not a promise of eight hours.
What if the team cannot agree on an estimate?
Let the lowest and highest voters explain their reasoning, then vote again. If the votes still do not converge after two or three rounds, the story is probably too big or too vague and should be split or clarified before it is estimated.
Is planning poker only for software teams?
No. Any team that needs to size work relatively can use it, including design, marketing and operations teams. It is most common in Scrum and other agile software teams.
Do we need to sign up to use Fun Fox Planning Poker?
No. You enter a name, create a room and share the link or room code with your team.