Best Planning Poker Apps 2022 Comparison
Planning Poker vs PlanITpoker vs Methodist.io
Scrum poker is a straightforward and popular estimation technique many Agile teams use. Teams sat together in cozy offices during the pre-pandemic period and estimated their tasks using Scrum Poker. But even then, remote workers used online tools. Nowadays, modern companies prefer remote work if it doesn’t interfere with their business. Internet services evolve and propose better and better features for remote workers. Let’s review what can offer the best planning poker apps for small and large distributed teams.
Using the correct tools can help make your scrum planning poker sessions more enjoyable and engaging. Indeed, the one that best suits your team’s demands can aid in the accurate estimation of user stories.
Planning Poker
The predefined options provided by Planning Poker aimed at efficiently creating and managing teams. The average estimations for each team member are displayed on the final scoreboard. In addition, you may control the voting process, keep track of your team’s progress, and select from a range of cards. However, the fact that this planning poker tool is not free is a severe problem. You’ll have to pay for it regardless of the size of the squad. You can start with a trial period, but after a 14-day, you will be charged, and you will have the option to cancel your membership.
Pros:
- Many settings you can choose once and save as default.
- Support for integration with JIRA. You can also import a file with a list of stories or copy and paste them manually, as we usually do.
- You can store the entire history of sessions, so it’s always convenient to return to previous results at any time or export them as .csv.
- The moderator can switch from “Observer Mode” to “Active Mode” during the game. He can vote or skip it.
Cons:
- No free plans for small business
- Require email from all teammates
- Planning Poker is the only paid tool among my top list, and, from my point of view, it does not contain any killer features compared to others.
- It may seem a little overloaded with functionality and a lot of settings.
Killer features:
- Jira integration
PlanITpoker
PlanITpoker is a simple and effective planning tool with all features available for free. Among the prominent features are the ability to create rooms for conducting estimations, enter user stories, skip stories, and automatically show votes when the voting process is over, as well as the ability to change your vote. It also supports a variety of estimation methodologies, such as t-shirt, scrum, playing, and sequential cards.
However, automatically importing user tales may be a problem because such capability is unavailable. However, it is a free online planning poker tool that does its essential function. Probably is the oldest and the most popular tool among developers.
Pros:
- Free service. Without even paid plans.
- Simple UI and settings.
- Nice vote results analytics
- Ability to create a quick room without registration
Cons:
- Without updates or new features for years
- No integrations with other platforms
- Missed ability to skip or switch an active story
- Absent spectator mode
Killer features:
- No killer features
Methodist.io
With Methodist, you can estimate your stories with an unlimited number of users, chat with teammates, use different card decks, end export results as CSV or PDF. However, planning poker is not the single functionality. This service also gives the ability to create an online room for doing retrospectives with predefined boards, chats, and reports. And finally, you can set up a room for conducting a technical interview with live codding.
Service has paid plans, but these plans are mainly for supporting the project because the free tier has no limits by users and gives users almost all functionality.
Pros:
- Reach free plan without limits by users.
- Simple UI and settings.
- Service has a rating system for your teammates to motivate colleagues to make estimates more carefully.
- Ability to create a quick room and join without registration
- CSV, DocX, and PDF reports
- Analytics for planning results and team sync rate
- Live chat
- Designed card decks
- Ability to create a team and schedule regular calendar events
- Has Google Chrome plugin to export stories from Jira without admin permissions
- Supports multiple scram masters per room
- Different team roles
Cons:
- No Jira integration with API. However, it has a Chrome extension.
- A small number of user settings for rooms.
Killer features:
- Besides planning poker, it provides the ability to make a retrospective
- Besides planning poker and retrospective, it gives the ability to conduct a technical interview with live coding
Conclusion
Even using the same frameworks and methodologies, all teams have their own culture, approaches, and habits, so there are currently enough tools on the market with a different set of features. Try them at least one time to decide whether it fits your needs or not.
Have a good game and accurate estimates!
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