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Planning for the future is what only humans are able to do. All of us may not be very good at that and might be committing errors but we still make estimates nonetheless. Estimates and planning are essential because they enable us to proceed in such a way that we may reach where we want to be in the future. Estimates help us in having an idea of how much time, money, and effort would be required and planning helps us in setting up milestones on the way to the desired future goal. And when we have plans and estimates in place, teams tend to think and act in the same way instead of moving in different directions. Most of the stakeholders like Product Managers, Project Managers, and Software Developers generally agree on one point and that is that estimation is a difficult task. Or rather one of the most challenging parts of their jobs. 

The product development teams are usually under immense pressure from their top management or leadership to make sure that their estimates are as much accurate as possible. But it should not be forgotten that an estimate is just that, an estimate and it can't be a solid figure to demonstrate the actual picture. Apart from this, there is another challenge. That is to decide when and how to make estimates. But these decisions are important and need to be taken in order to successfully start, complete, deliver, and deploy any project. And these decisions become all the more critical in Agile Management. 

Estimation Techniques In Agile Management

Today, there are a number of estimation techniques available as far as Agile Management is concerned. In this article, we will discuss two of the major estimation techniques in Agile product development and see how one technique stacks against the other. We will provide a comparative study of the two estimation techniques so that you may be able to clearly understand the difference between the two. These two estimation techniques are Affinity Estimation and Planning Poker. Both of them are quite popular with the Agile teams and here we will present a study of Affinity Estimation vs Planning Poker. But let's first understand briefly what these two techniques are.

Affinity Estimation

When you have a lot of options for something and you are required to choose one, you get confused about which one to take. Making a decision becomes tough there and you spend a lot of time deliberating about it. However, if you knew or were sure which options you don’t have to or don’t want to choose, the decision would become easy. Here, the Affinity Estimation technique will be useful. 

In the context of Agile Management, teams are not asked to dive into making estimates straightaway,  Affinity Estimation asks them to compare. In this way, the teams have to do less analysis and are able to process more User Stories in less time. The process of Affinity Estimation is quite simple. The product owner takes one item and asks the team to make an estimate for it. The team can use any scale as its base for setting the estimate. Now the team sets an estimate for the first user story. Then the next User Story is picked and once again the team makes an estimate for it. The task here is that the team is asked to compare both stories. Is the second story larger or smaller than the first one? The members of the team may have different views on this. You may get mixed results. To sort this out, the team may have an open discussion about it and be asked to give their reasons for why they think the second story is smaller or larger. Each member of the team can put forth his or her comments openly to stress their point of view. Once this exercise is completed for all the stories, you may take a decision on what needs to be done next. The most likely outcome could be that all the smaller items are accepted and you may be required to set estimations for larger stories only so your focus has to be on them. 

Planning Poker

Now, coming to the Planning Poker technique of estimation. Also known as Sprint Poker or Agile Poker, Planning Poker is again a simple technique but it is a very useful one. It is an estimation technique with elements of gaming included in it. It is usually used by the Agile teams as a group estimation technique for setting the estimate in software development for the amount of effort and the relative size of development goals. This technique reduces any prejudices and helps in arriving at more comprehensive estimations. The gaming elements integrated with Planning Poker help in encouraging participation from the team. It is rather easy to use and fun to work with. Let's have a look at how it works.

To begin with, the Product Owner picks up a User Story, and every member of the team is given a set of cards. Each card has a scale of numbers on it. Some questions and a pass card may be included in this. Once the story is read, every member of the team is asked to show one of the cards that they have chosen as an estimate for the story. The important point here is that the value on the chosen card should correspond to the amount of effort required for the story. Sometimes, the team members may reach a consensus without much difficulty, but at other times, this may require a detailed discussion. If everyone in the team has chosen a different card, the Scrum Master may initiate a discussion on why the estimates are so different. From this discussion will emerge a more accurate estimate because it will include everyone's point of view. 

Affinity Estimation vs Planning Poker

Both Affinity Estimation and Planning Poker are useful in their own ways in making the estimates. However, the circumstances under which these techniques can be used differ from each other. While the Affinity Estimation is used by many Agile teams for making estimates of a large number of User Stories in narrative points in a faster and simpler way, techniques like Planning Poker are mainly useful in arriving at a common agreement on estimates in smaller projects. If a project is just starting and the backlog has still not been estimated, Affinity Estimation is a good technique to apply for estimation. Also, if you are just preparing to schedule a release, once again Affinity Estimation is the right tool to use as it will give you quick results. 

On the other hand, Planning Poker is more of a fun technique with elements of gaming and has one clear benefit. That is that every team member gets a chance to talk about their estimate so the team members move ahead with a spirit of mutual discussion and cooperation making them more committed to the project plan.

The Planning Poker estimation technique is based on consensus building. There is intensive debate if all the team members do not choose the same value. In the debate, particular emphasis is laid on the reasons for making higher or lower estimates. This process is repeated till a consensus is reached. In case it seems that an agreement is not reachable, the Agile estimators take a decision to postpone the estimation and planning of a particular item till more information is available to arrive at a consensus. This approach is not very effective when the groups are big or the number of items to be estimated is large. But this method is very useful if the number of items is limited (usually between 2 and 10) and the team size is also small.

Let's have a look at the characteristics of both the Affinity Estimation and Poker Planning in a comparison table below:

So, in conclusion, we may say, you may use whichever technique you prefer, you should put more value on conversations than you put on actual estimations.

References

1. https://chpokify.com/community/affinity-estimation-vs-planning-poker/
2. https://www.parabol.co/blog/agile-estimation-techniques/
3. https://www.scrum.org/forum