Aim

At the end of this meeting we will have a set of working agreements for running planning sessions and operating planning poker.

Best and Not so good

In 20 seconds describe the best planning session we have had and the worst

How satisfied are we with planning meetings?

5. Our planning sessions are as good as they can be everyone is absolutely clear about the process and the meetings are a joy to attend!

4. Planning meetings work well but sometimes we wander off topic although we recognise this and quickly refocus

3. I am satisfied with how planning meetings work we are focused most of the time

2. Sometimes the meetings seems to progress well and we move on quickly but this doesn't happen frequently enough.

1. Planning meetings are a drag, unfocused and pointless, nobody listens to each other

How satisfied are we with the release?

5. Excellent, we worked really well as a team

4. A great release the improvements are already obvious, minimal support required

3. A good effort it works OK and nobody has complained

2. It works OK and people are managing to use it with support

1. Not good at all, we were lucky to get it out

Activity 1 "Story points - High/Low"

10 minutes

Look at all the cards are there trends in those stories over or underestimated can you draw out any themes from the type of task or the initial understanding of the story. Is there something about "OK" stories that we need to reproduce in the others?

2 minutes

Present thoughts back to the rest of the group

Activity 2 "Features of a productive meeting"

10 minutes

Think about the best planning meeting we have had, what made it effective, what was still missing?
What common impediments do we have for those meetings that didn't run so well? Are there some easy agreements we can implement to improve things?

2 minutes

Present thoughts back to the rest of the group

Working agreements

5 minutes

Write up all the working agreements that we have come up with. If we have more than 5 do a dot vote (3 votes per person) to produce the top 5.

Retrospective outcomes

How satisfied are we with planning meetings

3 - 3 votes
2 - 4 votes

How satisfied are we with the release

5 - 1 vote
4 - 4 votes
3 - 1 vote

Potential working agreements (votes in brackets)

• Only high/low estimators speak (3)
• Product Owner, Scrum Master must be available for questions (1)
• Clarification by nominated person OK, Debate not (4)
• Limit meetings to relevant people only (0)
• Fuller descriptions on stories (1)
• Fewer tickets to be addressed in any one meeting (4)
• Voting discipline, be focused and ready (2)
• It's OK to continue questioning an estimate if there is a two grade difference (0)
• Don't be afraid to use the '?' card (4)
• Max 3 rounds of votes on one story (0)
• Alternate technical and front end tickets to be estimated (1)

NOTE - One person only used 2 votes instead of 3. Items in bold are the chosen working agreements