Planning Poker
-
Upload
david-parsons -
Category
Software
-
view
518 -
download
7
description
Transcript of Planning Poker
David Parsons - Massey University
Planning Poker
Associate Professor David ParsonsMassey University
David Parsons - Massey University
First developed by James Grenning “How to avoid analysis paralysis while
release planning” The aim of Planning Poker is to create
estimates in a short time and involve the whole team
Planning Poker
David Parsons - Massey University
Like the Planning Game, Planning Poker is not really a game◦ Simply a way of using game-like activities to
perform some of the tasks of agile planning One significant difference is that in Planning
Poker there are additional ‘pieces’ – the ‘cards’ used to estimate stories
Game-like activity using Cards
David Parsons - Massey University
The customer reads a story◦ There is a discussion clarifying the story as
necessary Each programmer selects their chosen
estimate card◦ (Or writes their estimate on a note card, if no pre-
printed pack is available) No discussion of estimates takes place at
this stage Once all programmers have written their
estimate, all the cards are turned over
Basic Process - Estimation
David Parsons - Massey University
If there is agreement, no discussion is necessary◦ The estimate is recorded and we move on to the
next story. If there is disagreement in the estimates,
the team can try to get a consensus If there is no consensus, it doesn’t matter
◦ It is only one story out of many It can be deferred, split, or the lowest
estimate can be taken
Basic Process - Discussion
David Parsons - Massey University
Everyone in the team participates◦ They have to make an estimate◦ Everyone gains experience
Discussions are automatically triggered by the more problematic estimates
Where estimates are straightforward, the game enables consensus without unnecessary discussion
Everyone Estimates
David Parsons - Massey University
Save time of manually writing estimates Cards also only have a subset of possible
estimated days James Grenning’s set:
◦ 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 days and infinity As the estimates get longer, the precision
goes down
Pre-Printed Cards
David Parsons - Massey University
Maximum story size is under 2 weeks if you estimate that a story is longer than 2
weeks, play the infinity card and make the customer split the story
The Infinity Card
David Parsons - Massey University
Mountain Goat Software◦ 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, and 100◦ online version also includes a .5 card ◦ The ‘zero’ value might look odd but it does not
mean it takes no time at all, rather that is closer to 0 than 1
Mike Cohn◦ 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 (Fibonacci sequence)◦ or 1, 2, 4, and 8
Other Card Sets
David Parsons - Massey University
As well as the estimation number cards, some packs have additional cards◦ ‘don’t know’◦ ‘discuss’◦ ‘coffee time’ ◦ etc.
You can make up cards that you find useful in your own processes
Additional Cards
David Parsons - Massey University
0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40 (in 4 ‘suits’) + ‘fast forward’, ‘rewind’ and ‘talk’
The ‘Agical’ card set
David Parsons - Massey University
One suggestion for maintaining the speed of the process is to use a 2-minute egg timer for each discussion
This may be turned over once more for more problematic estimates but then the next story should be estimated
Speeding the Process
David Parsons - Massey University
With large teams, where there are many stories to estimate, Planning Poker can be played separately by smaller teams
However they will need to have done some estimating as a whole team first, covering 10 to 20 stories◦ This ensures that everyone is familiar with the
technique◦ Also ensures that subsequent estimates are
consistent between groups
Large Teams
David Parsons - Massey University
A minor variation on Planning Poker is to use poker chips instead of estimation cards, 1 chip for each story point
Possible to use different coloured chips to indicate different estimation contexts
◦ “we had three team sizes we were considering for the release and we used white, blue and red chips to indicate the base story points and two levels of increment”
Yip, J. (2007)
Variations – Poker Chips
David Parsons - Massey University
Another variation is to use an on-line version for distributed teams
You can also download versions for mobile phones
Variations – Online
planningpoker.com
David Parsons - Massey University
Moløkken-Østvold and Haugen (2007) identified some measurable and potential benefits
Haugen (2006) claimed that it improved estimation in most cases, but that it increased estimation error in the extreme cases
Empirical Evidence
David Parsons - Massey University
Cohn, M. (2005). Agile Estimating and Planning, Addison-Wesley
Grenning, J. (2002). Planning Poker or How to avoid analysis paralysis while release planning https://sewiki.iai.uni-bonn.de/_media/teaching/labs/xp/2005a/doc.planningpoker-v1.pdf
Haugen, N. (2006). An Empirical Study of Using Planning Poker for User Story Estimation, AGILE 2006, 23-34
Moløkken-Østvold, K. & Haugen, N. (2007). Combining Estimates with Planning Poker – An Empirical Study, 18th Australian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC 2007), 349–358
Yip, J. (2007). Hands-on release planning with poker chips. 14th Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (PLOP 2007)
References