Why estimate together
Before a sprint is committed, the team sizes the work together. Estimating is not one person guessing in a corner — it is a short conversation the whole crew has.
A size is a rough measure of effort and risk, not a promise of hours. The joinery to a curved wall is bigger than the joinery to a straight one, even if both take the carpenter a day.
Opening a session
From the sprint, planning poker is one click away. It opens a session pre-loaded with the tasks the team is about to commit to.
The deck
The cards use the Fibonacci scale — one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. The gaps widen on purpose: the difference between five and eight is real, between eight and nine it is not.
Everyone votes at once, in secret, on the same task. Voting blind is the whole trick: it stops the foreman’s number from dragging everyone else along with it.
The disagreement is the point
Youssef casts an eight, because the reception counter has a tricky return he does not want glossed over. His number is locked in before he hears anyone else’s.
The cards stay face down until everyone has committed. Only then do they flip together, so nobody can change their mind to agree with the boss.
A wide spread is the useful part, not the problem. When Tarek says three and Youssef says eight, they are picturing different jobs — and that conversation prevents the surprise on site.
The habit that matters
The habit worth building: estimate the work out loud, together. The number you write down matters less than the five-minute argument that produced it.
What just happened
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Why estimate together
Before a sprint is committed, the team sizes the work together. Estimating is not one person guessing in a corner — it is a short conversation the whole crew has.
-
Opening a session
From the sprint, planning poker is one click away. It opens a session pre-loaded with the tasks the team is about to commit to.
-
The deck
The cards use the Fibonacci scale — one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. The gaps widen on purpose: the difference between five and eight is real, between eight and nine it is not.
-
The disagreement is the point
Youssef casts an eight, because the reception counter has a tricky return he does not want glossed over. His number is locked in before he hears anyone else’s.
-
The habit that matters
The habit worth building: estimate the work out loud, together. The number you write down matters less than the five-minute argument that produced it.
Open sprints Opens Taskity in your own project.