I would like to see a built in Planning Poker game, similar to what is available via http://www.planningpoker.com, but with direct integration to the backlog. It would allow the members of the team log into the game, cast their estimates on a user story, and come to a consensus. When the team is in agreement, their estimate is automatically updated on the story.
This functionality is invaluable for distributed teams.
by: Mike S. | over a year ago | Product Planning
Comments
I think this would be a fantastic addition. In our transition to agile, I've found that if it isn't in the tool, people find ways to "forget" or alter the agile process.
This would be great, but... It is important to remember to have all of your acceptance criteria fully defined (with help from QA, of course, right?) before you try to estimate the work to be done. KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ESTIMATING before you try to estimate! So, as a note to V1, if you add this, try to integrate something into it that encourages defining 'Done' criteria prior to playing.
This would be very helpful when planning features for multi-sites teams.
Admins should be able to configure the planning poker scale, i.e. not limited to only fibonacci or power of 2.
and don't forget to include a built-in countdown timer
First thing I would like to see is full support for integer drop down lists so that you can use a Fibonacci series (or what ever values you wanted) to constrain estimates for size, even just on the backlog.
I would also like to be able to use the poker utility for more than just size-- other factors like "business value" and "schedule risk" can be estimated in this way, so don't constrain it to only size.
Support for integers, whether in drop-down lists or as simple entry fields would be a huge step forward - importing data from TFS included many integer fields that now display like currency values and allow users to enter non-integer values.
This would benefit all distributed teams of which I have one - please?
Yes, this would be a great addition to the tool, especially as pointed out with the connection to the backlog being sized. planningpoker.com is a great site for what it is, but it's showing it's age.
Please add a comment section i.e. to explain why an item is an eight rather than a three.
Usually distributed teams are on a phone bridge to hear any clarification or Q&A prior to the vote, and then can verbally convey their justification for any outlier votes. However a comment box might allow folks to think in concise terms, since verbal discussion can head straight into the weeds and violate the countdown timer. If you're asking to actually "persist" the voting and comments, that's even more interesting, but it would seem to represent non-consensus where someone later could use their vote to say "See I was more right". And I don't think that's the purpose of the delphi method and story pointing.
+1 vote - we use versionone to get tool support for sprint planning and tracking, and use a third party to do this today - would much prefer native V1 support
We have been using a bit this web service
http://hat.jit.su/
Can be used from mobiles as well
Estimably is VersionOne's take on an integrated planning poker utility and is available as of the Summer '14 release (in Limited Release initially). See https://community.versionone.com/Release-Notes-and-Downloads/Summer_2014_Release_Notes for more details.