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How It Works
Create an Instant Room
Set-up in seconds. Use the instant room feature or sign-up to keep the same room number for future plannings - making the set-up even faster.
Invite others
Invite your colleagues to your planning poker by sharing the room id, let them scan the QR code with their mobile or just send them the link. If you have trouble to find a common timeslot, create a poll with our Doodle alternative "Whocan.org".
Start estimating stories
Once your team has entered the room, you can see them online and the scrum poker can start. The team can submit estimates, see who has provided estimates and show the results.
What is Planning Poker versus Scrum Poker?
Scrum poker or the related trade marked Planning poker, is an effort or relative size estimation technique often used in the context of scrum or other agile frameworks. The term "Planning Poker" was made popular by Mike Cohn in his Agile Estimating and Planning book and is based on Wideband delphi method. Scrum poker has become a favored technique for many to quickly and efficient run their planning session.
During such a session, the team will sit together physically or virtually and after the product owner has presented a user story the team will discuss to agree on the acceptance criteria. Once the conversation has run its natural course, it is time to start estimating: each individual chose the estimation, unbeknown to the others, which in his view best represents the relative effort and complexity of the discussed user story. Once this is done all the estimations are revealed at the same time. Now the people with the highest estimate and with the lowest are both invited to discuss a justification for their estimates. The goal is that all the members in the team reach a consensual estimation, which will be associated to the estimation.
This process is then repeated until a consensus is reached and the team comes to an agreement.
Why use Planning poker?
An evident first reason to use planning poker for estimation is because it avoids the danger of individuals being influenced by the estimations of other participants. But more than that, a planning session allows the team to align even more deeply on the content of a user story, it's definition of done and the acceptance criteria. Often during the conversation following very large discrepancies, it becomes evident that one person assumed an implicit acceptance criteria or maybe someone missed a simplifying synergy.
Another valuable outcome of planning poker and the use of story points for your sprint, is that it allows you to start measuring velocity. Velocity is an indication of the average amount of product backlog items, measured using the aforementioned story points, that were turned into an increment during the current sprint. Velocity allows the team to structure their inspection and is a good baseline for a conversation during the retrospective. As we discussed since story points are a relative estimation and are based on a consensus, this should never be used as an absolute metric to measure performance or to compare teams, this should simply be a spark to start a conversation based on a measure.
So to summarize, planning poker is valuable because it removes reciprocal influences during the estimation process & because it allows for a deeper alignment on the acceptance criteria of a user story. You should try it out and see how quickly the estimations lay open underlying differences in understanding of the user story.
Planning Poker Cards: Decks, Values, and Custom Scales
Planning poker cards are the small deck that every team member uses to vote on the relative size of a user story. Each card carries a single value, and team members select one card per round to represent how complex they think the story is. The deck is small on purpose — usually between 8 and 13 cards — because too many options slow down estimation and produce false precision.
The most widely used scrum poker planning cards follow the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89. The growing gaps between values match the growing uncertainty of larger stories — it is easy to debate whether something is a 2 or a 3, but a debate between 13 and 21 usually signals the story needs to be broken down. Many decks also include three special cards: 0 for trivial or already-done work, ∞ for stories that are too large to estimate, and ? when a team member does not have enough information to commit to a value. Some teams also include a coffee-cup icon to call for a break.
Not every team uses Fibonacci. T-shirt sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL) work well for early-stage backlog grooming when broad sorting is more useful than precision. Some teams use a power-of-two scale (1, 2, 4, 8, 16) or a linear scale for routine work. There is no objectively best deck — the right scale depends on what your team estimates and how often you re-estimate.
In Scrum Poker Online, guest users get the standard Fibonacci deck out of the box: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, plus the three special cards. Registered users can customize their planning poker cards in the profile settings — comma-separated values, up to three characters per card. This lets your team match the deck to your workflow without forcing everyone into one default. Step-by-step guide to customizing your scrum poker cards →
Planning Poker FAQ
- What is planning poker?
- Planning poker is a consensus-based estimation technique used by agile teams. Each team member privately picks a card representing the relative size of a user story, then everyone reveals at the same time. When estimates differ, the team discusses and re-votes until they agree.
- How does planning poker work?
- The team reads a user story, each member picks a card with a value (usually from the Fibonacci sequence), and all cards are revealed simultaneously. If estimates diverge, the highest and lowest voters explain their reasoning, then the team votes again. The process repeats until consensus is reached.
- What is the difference between planning poker and scrum poker?
- Planning poker and scrum poker are the same technique — just different names. Planning Poker is the original trademarked term coined by Mike Cohn. Scrum poker became a common alternative name because the technique is most often used by Scrum teams during sprint planning and backlog refinement.
- Why does planning poker use the Fibonacci sequence?
- The Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…) reflects the growing uncertainty of larger tasks. The gaps between numbers widen as values increase, which forces the team to acknowledge that bigger stories are harder to estimate precisely — and that a debate between 13 and 21 usually means the story should be broken down.
- What are story points?
- Story points are a unit of relative size used in agile estimation. They measure how complex a user story is compared to other stories the team has already estimated — not how many hours or days it will take. Two developers might take different amounts of time but agree on the story's relative complexity.
- How long should a planning poker session take?
- A focused planning poker session typically runs 30 to 60 minutes for 10 to 20 stories. Time-box each story to about 3 to 5 minutes of discussion. If a story consistently needs longer, it is usually a sign that the story is too vague or too large and should be split.
- Who should participate in a planning poker session?
- The development team (developers, QA, UX) does the estimating, since they will do the work. The Product Owner is present to clarify questions and define acceptance criteria, but typically does not vote. The Scrum Master facilitates the session and ensures the rules — especially the simultaneous reveal — are respected.
- Is Scrum Poker Online free?
- Yes. The full planning poker experience — creating rooms, inviting your team, voting, revealing cards — is free with no signup required. A 40 USD/year Premium plan removes ads and adds extras like a session timer, a personal room ID, attendance indicators, and automatic average/median calculation.
- Do I need to register to use Scrum Poker Online?
- No. You can create a room, invite your team via link, and run a full planning poker session without any account. Registration is only needed if you want Premium features like a personal reusable room ID, custom card values, or an ad-free experience.
- Can I customize the planning poker cards?
- Yes, registered users can. By default the cards follow the Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89) plus the special cards (0, ∞, ?). Registered users can replace these with any custom values — T-shirt sizes, a half-point scale, or anything else that fits the team's workflow.