Planning poker: a versatile management and decision-making tool
17 October 2024
Method
Decisions, Planning, Prefix playing card Planning poker is a fun, collaborative tool using a card game where each member of a team evaluates a task or decision by choosing a card corresponding to a specific value. The cards are revealed simultaneously, then discussed until a consensus is reached. This avoids influence bias and encourages collective participation in decision-making and the management of various priorities.
Planning poker is often used by agile project teams, but it can also be used to address other important issues within an organisation.
How can planning poker be used?
- Prioritising tasks and projects
Planning poker enables tasks or projects to be ranked according to their impact, urgency or complexity, by fostering a collective consensus. This helps to better manage priorities by taking into account different points of view. - Risk assessment
The tool can be used to estimate the probability and impact of risks in a project, making it easier to take informed decisions on preventive action. - Allocation of resources
Thanks to collaborative estimation, planning poker helps to better allocate resources according to the needs and capacities of the team, thereby optimising efficiency. - Strategic decision-making
Planning poker can be used to evaluate strategic options by weighing up different factors (costs, benefits, feasibility). This makes decision-making more transparent and collective. - Continuous process improvement
By assessing the performance of internal processes, planning poker makes it easier to identify areas for improvement, taking into account the opinions of all employees. - Estimating tasks in an agile project
The main use of planning poker is to estimate the tasks in a project managed by an agile team. Each team member gives a numerical estimate (based on complexity points or units of time) to assess the effort required to complete a task. This collective estimate enables different points of view to be taken into account and uncertainty to be reduced by reaching a consensus, which is crucial for effective sprint planning and priority management.
The benefits of planning poker for an organisation
Using planning poker encourages collective participation, reduces decision-making bias and improves communication between teams. Its adaptable approach makes it useful in many contexts: prioritisation, risk management, strategic decisions, etc. By integrating this tool into your processes, you can optimise team commitment and improve the overall management of your organisation.
Poker planning cards
Planning poker uses a pack of cards in which each card represents a numerical estimate. The values of the cards are based on the Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc) with a few adjustments to make the sequence easier to use in a professional context (such as the addition of the 0 and 0.5 cards, the upper values rounded up to 20, 40 and 100 and the ‘?’ symbol to indicate uncertainty).
Why take inspiration from the Fibonacci sequence?
The Fibonacci sequence is used because it reflects the idea that the more complex a task, the more difficult it becomes to estimate its effort precisely. The values increase exponentially, capturing this uncertainty. This increasing difference helps teams to avoid focusing too much on minor differences when tasks become more complex and uncertain.
In short, using the Fibonacci sequence encourages teams to focus on orders of magnitude rather than over-precise estimates, taking into account the natural margins of error in estimating complex tasks.
