Planning Poker

Planning Poker is an agile consensus-based technique for estimating effort or relative size of user stories in software development. Team members make estimates by playing numbered cards face-down, then reveal them simultaneously to avoid bias.

1. Product Owner presents a user story. 2. Team discusses requirements and asks questions. 3. Each member selects a card representing their estimate. 4. Cards are revealed at the same time. 5. Discuss differences and re-estimate if needed.

Promotes team collaboration, reduces anchoring bias, encourages discussion of requirements, provides more accurate estimates, and creates a fun, engaging estimation process.

Keep sessions short (15-30 minutes per story), use Fibonacci sequence for estimates, include all team members, discuss outliers openly, and use relative sizing rather than absolute time estimates.