Planning poker

In agile development methodologies, development teams use Planning Poker for issue evaluation. Each planner provides an independent evaluation of the effort needed to complete the issue by assigning Story Points to it. After that, the planners announce their evaluations, discuss them, and arrive at a final evaluation. Planning Poker usually uses special cards numbered according to the selected evaluation scale.

In Tracker, you can use boards in Planning Poker mode to collaborate on workload estimation.

Estimating effort for issues

1. To switch to poker mode, open your board and click Planning poker in any of its tabs.

2. In the window that opens, copy the poker link and send it to other team members. The poker page will list all the users who followed the link.

3. There are several ways to add an issue to a poker:

   • Drag the issue to the poker from a sprint or the backlog.
   • Click → Add to poker on the issue card.

4. Select the appropriate score for the issue and wait until other planners assign their values: you should see the green check mark in the card of each of them.

5. Click Show values. The scores chosen by the other users appear under their names.

   The final score will be calculated automatically and then saved in the Estimate field. You can change this value if needed.

6. Click Set an estimate to finalize the score. The score value from the Estimate field is copied to the Story Points field in the issue, and the issue disappears from the poker page.

Configuring the estimation scale

The estimation system used in planning poker usually includes Fibonacci numbers and similar number sequences. To change the scoring system:

1. Open your board and click Settings → Poker in the top right corner.

2. To add a number to the scoring system, enter it in the Deck of estimates field.

3. To remove a number from the scoring system, click .

4. Click Save.

Configuring how the final score is calculated

You can select how the values assigned by planners will affect the final effort estimate for your issues. To do this:

1. Open your board and click Settings → Poker in the top right corner.

2. Choose the calculation function in the Calculation of final estimate field. Maximum value is set by default.

3. Click Save.

Hide issues with Story Points set

To hide issues with a completed Story Points field in Planning Poker mode:

1. On the board, enable the display of the Story Points field in the → Card fields menu.
2. In the top right corner, click Settings → Poker and make sure that the Display estimated issues option is enabled.

To see issues with a completed Story Points field in Planning Poker mode:

1. Open the board, click Settings → Poker in the top right corner.
2. Enable the Display estimated issues option.