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We're planning to start with Scrum and preparing some stuff at the moment. We'd like to use planning poker for the refinement. But I can't find the information, if each member of the squad have to estimate the whole story or just his task like testing.

e.g. by story "As user i need a formula to send automatic incidents"

Should a tester, estimate just his test task or should he estimate the whole story incl. testing, programming etc.. Because I don't see, that a tester will be able to estimate the effort for a programmer.

regards collin

vmg
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CollinG
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3 Answers3

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When you do planning poker you aren't estimating effort, you are estimating relative size. For example, a 5 point story is bigger than a 3 point story and so on.

The whole team estimates together. They first start by estimating the relative size from their point of view. Then they discuss in detail if there are differences in the estimates. Finally they agree on a concensus size and move on to the next story.

As an example, a team estimates on a story to add some functionality to a web page. One developer has done this kind of work before and estimates 3 points. Another developer is new to this type of work and estimates 5 points. The team's tester is a bit worried about how she is going to test the story so she estimates it as an 8. As there is no guarantee the developer that rated it as a 3 will do the work they decide a higher estimate is better. The developers also listen to the tester explain why it will be difficult to test. The team talk about this for a while. They think of some ways to make the testing easier. Together they agree to go with 5 points for the story.

This kind of process is time consuming at first. But as a team gets used to working together they get better and better at quickly reaching a concensus. The important point is that everyone has their say.

Barnaby Golden
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Planning Poker is just one tool used in AGILE. It's purpose is to help the team decide how many points to allocate to a particular task, or story(you can use it for both). It's purpose it to help the mitigate endless debates.

When using Planning Poker Cards you are relying on the expertise of the people involved - it's a matter of expert opinion. So if everyone shows approximately the same card that everyone is on the same page and it easy to decide. However if anyone chooses a card that is nowhere near the average value chose by the rest of the team that the team has to go into a debate: why did that person choose that value; arguments.

Anyway, long story short it's a decision making tool and it's used wherever you need it. It helps converge to a common view faster than the traditional meetings where you endlessly talk about it.

Pandrei
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Theoretically the each member should estimate the whole story. The purpose of a planning poker is not "who is right or who is wrong about the estimation". The purpose is to share information between the team to get more accurate estimates over the time. Maybe the analysis of a tester will give more information to other members, including developpers, to estimate. Agile scrum depends on communication between the members the team. The team should be seen as a proper role, rather than considering "the developper" or "the tester".

So my opinion is that each member should estimate the whole story. If there are differences, then people talk, understand why there are differences or difficulties, and come to an agreement.

Coralie B
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  • the question refers to planning poker not the relationship between stories and tasks. – Pandrei Mar 01 '16 at 11:47
  • Well the last two answers helped me a lot. First we will estimate the size and not the effort. Second, we will estimate the whole story. Thanks for that. – CollinG Mar 16 '16 at 10:06