A planning poker tool is only useful when the team also has healthy estimation habits. The resources below focus on the parts around the vote: preparing stories, choosing a scale, handling disagreement, running remote sessions, and agreeing on team rules.
These guides are written and maintained by the Simple Plan Poker team from practical facilitation patterns. They are educational material, not vendor documentation; each guide is designed to be used during a real refinement session and includes concrete prompts, examples, or decision checks.
Complete worked example
Follow a real vote spread from 3 to 13 and see how the team uncovers scope, resolves assumptions, and records an estimate.
Facilitator playbook
Use preparation checks, discussion prompts, stopping rules, and a worksheet to run a fair, focused session.
Planning poker guide
End-to-end session workflow, from preparation to follow-up.
Facilitation checklist
A practical before, during, and after checklist for facilitators.
Remote estimation
How to keep distributed teams engaged and aligned.
Splitting large stories
Signals that an item is too large and patterns for making it estimable.
Estimation scales
Compare Fibonacci, ordinal, and decimal ordinal decks.
Estimation anti-patterns
Common behaviors that turn useful estimates into noise.
Team agreement template
Reusable working agreements for a consistent estimation process.
Planning poker glossary
Plain-language definitions for common estimation terms.