Planning poker: step by step

From an empty session to a recorded estimate: this is how a round of planning poker runs on AgileHub.

1. Create a session

Open Planning Poker and choose Create session. Give the session a name and pick a card deck:

• Fibonacci and Modified Fibonacci for story points,
• T-shirt sizes (XS to XL) for a rough sort,
• Powers of two (1, 2, 4, 8 …),
• 1 story point = 1 day if you estimate in person-days,
• a custom deck (from the Private plan) – you type the values yourself, "?" and the coffee card are added automatically.

Under More options you set the language of the session, whether people without an account may join, whether voting is anonymous (revealed cards then appear without names), a waiting room where you let new participants in first, the timer per round and a cap on stories. With an account you can assign the session to a workspace.

2. Invite the team

At the top of the session a blue band shows the address to type and the room code; that is also where you copy the invitation link, and QR code gives you a code to scan with a phone. Whoever opens the link enters a name and is in – no account needed, as long as you allowed joining without one.

3. Collect stories

In the backlog you add stories with title, description, ticket ID or link, priority, sprint or release and tags. Stories can be edited, deleted, sorted, duplicated – and imported: from a file or text (the columns for Jira, Linear and GitHub are recognised), live from Jira and GitHub, from your profile (My tickets), from another planning session of the same place, or as a sprint (the profile tickets with that sprint name and the stories of your other sessions that are put in that sprint - at most 500 per press of the button, press again for the rest). What is in the backlog already is not taken twice, even when its ticket number has changed since. Whoever runs the backlog sees where a ticket came from in its details. Estimates are not carried over - the team estimates again.

4. Estimate

1. Everyone picks a card. You can change your choice until the reveal. Only who has chosen is shown.
2. The host (or co-host) chooses Reveal – or the session reveals automatically once everyone has chosen, if you switched that on.
3. AgileHub shows average, median, majority and range, detects agreement and marks outliers. Ties are named.
4. If the cards are far apart you talk about it briefly – best by asking the outliers first – and start a new round with Restart.
5. When a value is found, the host chooses Accept. The story counts as estimated and you move on to the next story (or back to the previous one).

With the coffee card someone says a break is needed, with the question mark that the value cannot be estimated. Raise hand lets you signal that you want to speak.

5. The timer

The timer has presets (30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes) and can take a custom length. Start, pause, resume and reset are for the host and co-host only. Everybody sees the same remaining time – the server's clock sets it, not your computer's. If you like, a short tone sounds at the end (Settings → Sounds in sessions).

6. Results and export

The overview lists all stories with estimate, rounds and status, with a total. The history shows what was estimated in the session. You export results as CSV or PDF once your plan includes it (see Plans and limits). A session can be duplicated – with the stories still open, all of them or none, but without estimates and votes.

Keyboard shortcuts

The shortcuts work as long as you are not typing in an input field. Press ? in the session to open the list.

1 – 9, 0

Pick a card (1–9, 0 for the tenth)

H

Raise / lower hand

R

Reveal / hide again · Host and co-host only

X

Restart the round · Host and co-host only

N

Next story · Host and co-host only

P

Previous story · Host and co-host only

T

Start / pause the timer · Host and co-host only

?

This help