The Planning Game

The Planning game is where the team decides on what cards can be committed to for the next iteration.

Firstly, story cards will go through pre-planning. This is where a small group of the team discusses a selection of cards, making sure that they all have acceptance criteria and an estimate on them. Enough cards will go through pre-planning to give the team a choice in what they can commit to and cards will be prioritised by the product owner before they come into pre-planning but this order can be disputed by the team to an extent.

The planning game will happen at the start of an iteration. The team will sit round a table and the scrum master will stand to oversee what is going on and facilities the meeting. The story cards from pre-planning will be brought in and either put on a board or table, in priority order, so that everyone in the team can see them. I prefer them on a white board because then you can write estimates and notes next to the card as you are going.

Before the meeting starts, the scrum master lets the team know about any holidays people are taking in the next iteration, as well as what the last weeks velocity was. Velocity is the estimated time on the business value cards that were completed in the iteration. This is useful information for the developers to have, as it might effect their estimation of a card.

Each card is taken off the board and the product owner "sells the story" to the team, by explaining why the customer wants it done and what the business value is. Then it is passed to QA who read out each of the acceptance critera on the back of the card. The team discuss if the need anymore acceptance critera or changes made to the existing and once they are happy with the card the developers vote.

The vote lets the developers voice how long they think it will take for the card to be completed. Each developer will have voting cards (1/2 a day, 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, 5 days). The scrum master will ask them all to get their votes ready and then to reveal them. If people differ in opinion then developers will be asked to explain why they gave that vote before they vote again. When all developers come to a consensus, the estimate is written on the card.

When all cards have been formally estimated, the scrum master will total up all estimates on the business value cards and the team will decide who many of these cards they can complete, compared to previous velocities.


The cards for the iteration will be finalised and everyone in the team will commit to completing the card for the showcase to the business.