High Moon Studios: A Portrait - Scrum

Planning Poker Cards: Faster, Better, Cooler!

Photo of old verison of cards. New improved version photo coming soon!

I'm leaving Stockholm today after working with Crisp on Scrum training this week. In my bag are the new, upgraded, Crisp planning poker cards. Developers have been asking for more colors. We really need seven to support the typical Scrum team so each person has a different color. And the Planning Poker cards need numbers on the corners of the cards so you can seen the numbers when you hold a deck in your hand. The new cards solve these problems and Crisp has the only good web site for ordering Planning Poker cards so get them here!

Crisp needs to update it's web site. The photo is of the old cards. I'll post a photo of the new new improved version when I finish traveling today.

There are three best practices that have emerged for both Scrum and XP - User Stories, Planning Poker, and Scrum Boards. Lots of people have asked where to get Poker Planning cards. Many companies make these cards and none of them are as easy to sort as the color coded cards from Crisp in Sweden.

Estimating is one of the core activities in Scrum and other agile processes. This means the process of assessing the size of a story, i.e. how long it will take, how much work it is to implement, or how expensive it is.

In Scrum, estimating is a team activity. For each story, the whole team participates in the estimation process.

Planning poker is a simple but powerful tool that makes team-estimating faster, more accurate, and more fun. Some companies have eliminated 80% of their planning costs and are able to get better estimates using Planning Poker! Even if you are stuck in the mire of Waterfall planning these cards can help you avoid missed dates and death marches. Recommended for all developers.