Frequently Asked Questions

Planning Poker is a consensus-based agile estimation technique in which team members privately choose numbered cards to estimate effort, complexity and uncertainty.

The Product Owner presents a story, the team discusses it, everyone chooses a card privately, and all cards are revealed together. Differences are discussed before another round.

The growing gaps in the Fibonacci sequence reflect the increasing uncertainty involved in estimating larger work items.

It reduces anchoring bias, includes every team member, exposes risks early and builds a shared understanding of the work.

Story points express relative effort, complexity and uncertainty. Hours are absolute time estimates and vary more between people and contexts.

Three to nine estimators usually provides enough perspectives without making the discussion difficult to manage.

Keep sessions focused, take regular breaks and avoid extending a single session beyond two or three hours.

Most teams use a modified Fibonacci deck together with special cards such as question mark, break and infinity.

Use a shared real-time room, establish clear facilitation rules and make sure every participant can discuss and vote independently.

Ask the highest and lowest estimators to explain their reasoning, discuss overlooked risks, and vote again. Split the story if uncertainty remains high.

Break large stories into smaller, independently valuable slices before trying to commit to an estimate.

The Product Owner explains the story, answers requirement questions and defines acceptance criteria without steering the technical estimate.

Keep the discussion focused, manage time, include every voice and remain neutral about the estimate itself.

Clear acceptance criteria reduce ambiguity and help everyone estimate the same expected outcome.

Discuss external APIs, other teams, infrastructure and prerequisite work, then include their uncertainty in the conversation.

Add the story points completed in each sprint and use the average of several sprints for planning, never as an individual performance target.

Explain the scale and process, let them ask questions, and value their fresh perspective even while they learn the domain.

No. Refinement prepares and clarifies backlog items; Planning Poker is one estimation technique that can be used during refinement.

Group estimation combines perspectives and uncovers assumptions that an individual estimate is likely to miss.

Discuss code complexity, technical debt, refactoring, non-functional requirements and architectural impact before voting.

Review where estimates diverged from reality, identify missing assumptions and use those lessons in future refinement sessions.

Prioritize ease of use, real-time synchronization, remote-team support, useful history and a workflow that does not distract the conversation.

Look for better shared understanding, lower uncertainty, more predictable delivery and team satisfaction—not perfect numeric accuracy.

It promotes transparency, shared responsibility and open technical discussion while reducing blame around uncertain estimates.

Yes. Estimate within each team and align scales and assumptions across teams without forcing every team to share identical velocity.