In December 2022 we have added Async Poker game mode, inspired by the Planning Poker card game, to Magic Estimations for Jira Cloud. This page is dedicated to the new mode and explains how it works:

Planning Poker overview

Planning Poker is a gamified technique that development teams use to estimate the effort of project management tasks. These estimates are based on the entire group’s input and consensus, making them more engaging and accurate than other methods. To help gauge the number of story points for the relevant tasks, teams use planning poker cards, which are similar to poker cards.

Async Poker mode overview

Async Poker or simply Async game mode of Magic Estimations has been inspired by the Planning Poker framework but optimized for remote and distributed teams. Our solution inherits the gamified consensus-based core of the card game, but we use lanes (columns) of the collaborative estimation board instead of cards.

Unlike Planning Poker game process where the game is fully interactive, Async mode allows taking your time to do estimates at your own pace and only discuss final points if there is a big difference between the team members' personal estimates.

Async estimation process consists of 3 main steps:

1. A moderator creates a game, selects issues and prepares the estimation board (pins reference issues, distributes already estimated ones).

2. The game moderator starts the asynchronous estimation, where every participant estimates issues separately on their own Magic Estimations boards.

3. A Planning Poker game with pre-populated votes from the participants' async estimates. The game moderator can finalize estimates based on async results or interactively re-estimate some issues.

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Step 1: Create the game and prepare the board

The Async mode is available while creating a new estimation game, check the creation details and configuration examples on https://tech-5magicapps.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TD/pages/197066778/Starting+and+configuring+estimation+sessions#Creating-and-configuring-estimation-session page.

Specify the game backlog, prepare the board if needed and start the Async estimation.

Step 2: Async estimation

This is a step when app participants get their own boards for personal estimation. Spread the issues through the lanes according to their estimates.

Make sure you submit the estimates at the end:

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Monitor total and personal Async progress in the Dashboard and Participants tabs:

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Step 3: Interactive review

Play a Plannig Poker game with your team to finalize the estimates. All the submitted async votes are pre-populated in the game, but game owner can restart the voting to get new estimates from the participants if needed:

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Alternatively, the game moderator can review votes and submit final estimates on their own.

Pecularities of Async game

While all of the board features listed in https://magicapps.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TD/pages/197066796/Estimation+process#Board-features are valid, some of them have specific behavior.

Backlog editing is not allowed in the Async estimation step. However, the Quick add and Suggest estimate feature is available: https://magicapps.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TD/pages/197066796/Estimation+process#Quick-add-issues-and-edit-backlog with some changes:

1. When non-moderators suggest issues to be added, they are automatically added to the board of the participant suggested.

   1. If the moderator rejects the suggestion, the issue simply won’t appear on the final Review board.

2. When the moderator adds or approves issues to be added to the game, it will appear on all of the personal Async boards.

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      If a participant has already provided their async estimates, newly added issues might be a surprise. Make sure you notify participants about backlog updates.

Have a productive estimation!