How a Planning Poker Session Works

A typical round follows a simple, repeatable rhythm:

1. An item is presented. The team looks at a single backlog item, user story, or piece of work under discussion.
2. A vote is called. Anyone in the session can call for an estimate once the team has discussed the item enough to have an opinion.
3. Everyone estimates privately. Each participant picks their card - a number, or Infinity/Pass - without seeing anyone else's choice.
4. Estimates are revealed together. Once every participant has voted (or the group chooses to reveal early), all estimates appear at the same time.
5. Outliers spark discussion. If everyone agrees, the estimate is settled quickly. If estimates vary widely, the highest and lowest voters explain their reasoning - this is often where the most valuable conversation of the whole session happens.
6. The team re-votes if needed. After discussion, the team estimates again. Most items converge within one or two rounds.

In this app, once every joined participant has submitted an estimate the round reveals itself automatically and immediately shows the average of all numeric estimates to the whole team - "Infinity" and "Pass" votes are excluded from that average since they're signals to break the story down or gather more information, not size estimates.