What are the benefits of this?
Some software development teams measure via ‘story points’ where they know the size of one story point, other dev teams measure in days and some developers estimate in ideal hours. It actually doesn't matter what the number represents - as long as the whole team uses the same scale.
It is teamwork and everybody on the table has an equal voice. You'll be surprised that every software developer on the table has an equal input and vision when it comes to estimations.
The pressure to not have the minimum or maximum value really makes each developer on the table think twice before giving an actual card. This will result in better estimations.
The feeling that the whole development team was part of the planning gives us the nice outcome that they are more committed to sticking to the plan. The result is a more dedicated & self-organized team.
Fill the form on the right to receive you planning poker cards by post. Its 100% free.
One set allows you to play with 4 people
Each person will have 13 cards - so one set contains 52 cards. Each card is made from a 350 gram quality paper - which is actually the same paper we use for our business cards. So they are meant to not break :) Our experience is that after half year they get quite dirty - but this makes them feel even better in your hand!
13 cards for each developer
The cards in the deck have numbers on them. A typical planning poker deck has cards showing the Fibonacci sequence including a zero - this is what we prefer as well. We have the following numbers for each developer: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, ? and ☕ ; The reason for using the Fibonacci sequence is to reflect the inherent uncertainty in estimating larger items.
Put them in a deck
The deck is the first thing that will break from our experience. It will last some games - but if i can give you a piece of good advice: keep them together. There is no point of playing a planning poker game when one of the developers is missing a card. We usually drop them in one of our coffee cups - let us know once you've reached that point and we will post you a coffee cup as well ;)
