Planning poker in the SCRUM process
Planning Poker has established itself in the SCRUM process as a popular and effective estimation technique for evaluating the complexity of user stories or work packages. Each team member makes a hidden estimate using cards with specific point values. The process creates a common basis for discussions and promotes understanding of the tasks. Using this method has several positive effects on the success of the project:
Creation of a common understanding: In Planning Poker, all team members involved come together to evaluate the task or requirement. This helps everyone to develop a common understanding of the requirements. Through the discussions that arise during the estimation process, misunderstandings can be clarified and questions answered.
Identification of dependencies and risks: By jointly assessing the tasks, potential dependencies and risks within the team can be identified. Difficulties in implementing a task become clearer as the opinions and skills of all team members are taken into account. As a result, measures can be taken to minimize risks and identify dependencies at an early stage.
Prioritization of tasks: Planning Poker enables the team to determine the prioritized tasks. The scores on the cards allow the team to compare the importance and effort of each task while ensuring that the right priorities are set. This supports the product managers in making the right decisions for the progress of the project.
Improvement of project planning and forecasting: The results of the Planning Poker serve as the basis for further planning steps and the creation of the sprint backlog. Based on the estimated point values, the development team, the SCRUM master and the product owner can assess the feasibility of the tasks and adjust the schedule. In this way, Planning Poker helps to make realistic predictions about project progress and delivery dates.
Online planning poker
During our work in various project teams, we repeatedly come into contact with different ways of conducting Planning Poker. Some teams already have solutions integrated into the software they use that also work for distributed and remote teams (e.g. in Jira). This naturally has the advantage that these estimates are also consolidated and noted in the corresponding stories and work packages. However, such solutions are not available everywhere and sometimes come with immense license fees.
We have also worked with teams that had a chat open during planning, for example, in which all participants posted their estimates. The disadvantage of this solution is that team participants can be influenced by the estimates that have already been made.
To solve this problem, we provide a free-to-use online tool that we also use ourselves to conduct Planning Poker in distributed teams in line with the SCRUM concept.
What sets us apart from other similar solutions:
- for free - There is no subscription and no hidden premium features.
- anonymous - Our SCRUM Poker can be used without registration or login..
- GDPR compliant - Our Planning Poker is hosted in Germany and we do not use any tracking tools that send data to the USA.
- ad-free - There's no annoying advertising. This allows the team to focus on planning.
Try out our free SCRUM Poker tool and improve your planning today.
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