Planning Poker Terms Glossary

  • agile: a software development methodology in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change. [wikipedia]
  • backlog: (product) the all-inclusive list of upcoming stories and bugs for a product's development. (sprint) the finite list of stories and bugs to be completed in one sprint.
  • card: a point value that a planning poker player estimates reflects relative effort for the story to be developed.
  • dashboard: the registered dealer-user portal containing a list of created and saved games with # of stories and description in each game.
  • dealer: the registered user that creates and moderates the planning poker game. 
  • deck: the set of available point-value cards a user estimates effort with.
  • fibonacci: a naturally occurring numerical pattern, in this case used to define effort estimation point scales.
  • force flip: a dealer's ability to flip all cards, regardless of whether all players have chosen point values. players without chosen values are assigned the Pass card.
  • game: a session of planning poker where players estimate effort for stories to be developed.
  • player: a planning poker user allowed to play cards with point values.
  • points: relative values denoting estimated effort required to complete a user story.
  • score: sum of all numerical cards played divided by number of numerical card players rounded up to the next number in the chose point scale. final (yet editable) point value for a user story.
  • sprint: a finite length of time for a team to work to develop a small set of product features. generally 2 weeks to 1 month long.
  • story: a to-do item for product development. long name: user story. also known as: product backlog item (pbi) or issue. widely accepted format: as a (user type), I would like (feature) so that (why).