What is planning poker?
Planning poker is an estimation technique used by agile teams to size user stories. Each team member independently picks a card representing their estimate, and all votes are revealed simultaneously. This prevents anchoring bias - no one is influenced by someone else's estimate before committing to their own.
The 1tt.dev Planning Poker tool runs entirely in the browser with real-time WebSocket communication. No install, no sign-up for voters, no desktop app.
Creating a session
The session owner (product owner, scrum master, or whoever is leading the ceremony) signs in and creates a session. Pick a name like "Sprint 24 Planning" and choose an estimation scale:
- Fibonacci - 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, ? - the most common scale for story points
- Modified Fibonacci - 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100 - popular for larger ranges
- T-shirt sizes - XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL - good for early-stage estimation or non-technical stakeholders
- Powers of 2 - 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 - useful when doubling effort is a natural progression
- Simple - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - for quick relative sizing
A 6-character session code is generated and displayed at the top of the screen. Share this code (or the full URL) with your team.
Joining a session
Voters don't need an account. They go to the Planning Poker tool, enter the session code, and pick a display name. Logged-in users can join with one click using their account name.
The session validates the code before showing the join form - if the code is invalid or the session has been disabled, voters see a clear error message instead of a broken connection.
The estimation flow
A typical planning poker round works like this:
- 1. Owner adds a story - title and optional description (acceptance criteria, technical notes, links)
- 2. Owner starts voting - the voting cards appear for everyone
- 3. Everyone votes - each person selects a card independently; a checkmark shows who has voted without revealing values
- 4. Owner reveals - all votes are shown simultaneously with statistics (average, median, mode, distribution)
- 5. Discuss and re-vote if needed - the owner can reset votes and run another round, or accept the result and move to the next story
Owner controls
The session owner has full control over the session:
- Add stories - create stories with a title and description dialog; stories are listed in the left panel
- Start / stop voting - voting only opens when the owner explicitly starts it
- Reveal votes - show all votes at once with statistics
- Reset votes - clear votes and re-open voting for another round
- Next story - advance to the next story in the queue
- Timer - set a countdown (1, 2, 3, or 5 minutes) to keep discussions focused
- Remove participants - kick a voter from the session (they see a "Removed" screen and cannot rejoin)
- Browse stories - click any previous story to review its description and results without affecting the active voting round
Vote results
After votes are revealed, the tool shows:
- Distribution bars - a horizontal bar chart showing how many people picked each value
- Average - for numeric scales (Fibonacci, Powers of 2)
- Median and mode - the middle value and most common value
- Per-voter breakdown - each participant's vote with their name
Session management
Sessions are persisted in the database - they survive page refreshes and server restarts. The landing page shows all your previously created sessions with:
- Session name and code
- Number of online participants
- Number of stories
- Disable - temporarily block new participants from joining
- Delete - archive the session (soft delete)
Reconnection
If a participant loses their connection (closed tab, network issue), they can rejoin within 60 seconds without losing their identity or vote. The tool stores a reconnection token in localStorage and automatically reconnects with exponential backoff.
When to use planning poker
- Sprint planning - estimate the stories pulled into the upcoming sprint
- Backlog refinement - size stories ahead of time so sprint planning goes faster
- Remote teams - everyone participates from their browser, no shared screen needed
- New teams - planning poker helps build a shared understanding of effort across team members