How to run planning poker online

Planning poker is a quick way for an agile team to agree how big a piece of work is. Everyone picks a card in secret, the cards are shown together, and the team talks about any big differences before agreeing a number. Here is how to run a session online, step by step.

Before the session

• Pick the items. Choose the stories, features or epics the team needs to size. Ten to fifteen stories is plenty for an hour.
• Make sure each item is clear enough. The product owner should be able to explain what "done" means for each one. If nobody can, the item isn't ready to estimate.
• Agree who facilitates. Usually the Scrum Master. The facilitator keeps time, reveals the votes and helps the team agree, but doesn't push a number.

Running a round

1. Start a room and share the link. Everyone joins from their own laptop or phone, so it works the same whether the team is in one room or spread across time zones.
2. Read out the item. The product owner explains it and answers questions. Keep this short: a few minutes at most.
3. Everyone votes in secret. Each person picks the card that matches how big they think the work is, compared with work the team has done before.
4. Reveal the votes together. Showing every card at once stops people being swayed by the first number they hear (this is called anchoring).
5. Talk about the extremes. If the votes are spread out, ask the people with the highest and lowest cards to explain. They often know something the others don't, such as a hidden dependency or a shortcut.
6. Vote again or agree. After the discussion, either vote again or agree on a number. Two rounds are usually enough. If the team still can't agree, the item probably needs splitting or more detail.

Tips for a good session

• Estimate size, not hours. Story points compare items with each other. It's easier to agree that one story is about twice as big as another than to guess hours.
• Use the ? and Pass cards. "?" means "I don't know enough", and Pass means "I'm not voting on this one". Both are useful signals, not failures.
• Timebox the talking. If one item takes more than ten minutes, park it and come back to it once someone has found out more.
• Very big items need splitting. Cards like 40, 100 and ∞ usually mean "this is too big to estimate well". Split it into smaller stories first.

Running it in EstimateIt

EstimateIt is free and needs no sign-up. The Scrum Master starts a room, adds the items (with Jira links if you use Jira), and shares the room link. Votes stay hidden until the facilitator reveals them, and the average and median are shown for number votes. When the team agrees, the facilitator picks the agreed card, and the totals for the room build up as you go. At the end, use Copy summary or Copy as CSV to take the results into your backlog tool.

The user guides show each screen step by step.

Common questions

How long should a planning poker session take?

About an hour for ten to fifteen stories is typical. Most items should take two to five minutes; longer ones usually need more detail or splitting.

Who should vote in planning poker?

Everyone who will do the work: developers, testers and anyone else building it. The product owner explains the items but usually doesn't vote.

Do we need to sign up to use EstimateIt?

No. Planning Poker is free and needs no account. Start a room and share the link.

Try it with your team

EstimateIt is free planning poker for agile teams, with nothing to install and no sign-up.

Start a planning poker room