The Planning Poker Companion is a method for estimating story points for user stories accomplished by entering values provided by the Agile Team with four optional methods for capturing and displaying results: Fibonacci Series, Numeric Series, Hours Approximation and Days Approximation.

Averages are then calculated for: 1) Last Round Only, 2) Average All Rounds, and 3) Average Without First and Last Rounds.

Planning Poker (also called Scrum Poker) is a method for estimating story points for user stories accomplished by providing the Agile Team with cards of varying values by which they can select the card each individual believes approximates the value the user story contributes to the project.

The Planning Poker Companion provides a vehicle to record the card entries which contains all four types of tables to record those choices, which you may use optionally, or simply delete those charts you will never use.

Since the four types of grids are designed as tables, you may add rows without the necessity of modifying any of the formulas. This will be accomplished automatically by Excel.

Depending on which table you choose to use (Fibonacci, Hours Approximation, etc.), the Rounds columns in each table have been populated with the values that correspond to that selection. For example, in the Fibonacci Table, the cells have been populated with 0,1,2,3,5,8,13,22,55 and 89.

Formulas are embedded in the tables to calculate the following columns: Last Round Only, Average All Rounds, and Average W/O First & Last (Eliminate first and last entry).

Last Round Only

The Last Round Only column will display the last round that was entered. The formula checks each column to determine which Rounds column was the last column containing a numeric value.

=IF(ISBLANK(B6),0, IF(ISBLANK(C6),SUM(B6), IF(ISBLANK(D6),SUM(C6), IF(ISBLANK(E6),SUM(D6), IF(ISBLANK(F6), SUM(E6), IF(ISBLANK(G6),SUM(F6), IF(ISNUMBER(G6),SUM(G6))))))))

Average All Rounds

The Average All Rounds column will display an average of all rounds that have been entered. If there is no data in any cells, the value is 0.00.

=IF(SUM(B6:G6)>0, SUM(B6:G6) / COUNTA(B6:G6),0)

Average Without First & Last

The Average W/O First & Last column will provide an average of the values entered in all Rounds except for the first and last entries.

=IF(COUNTBLANK(B6:G6)=5,SUM(B6:G6), IF(COUNTBLANK(B6:G6)=4,SUM(B6:G6)/2, IF(COUNTBLANK(B6:G6)=3,SUM(C6:D6)/2, IF(COUNTBLANK(B6:G6)=2,SUM(C6:D6)/2, IF(COUNTBLANK(B6:G6)=1,SUM(C6:E6)/3, IF(COUNTBLANK(B6:G6)=0,SUM(C6:F6)/4,0))))))

If there are only two entries, it calculates an average. If there are three entries, it uses the last 2 entries. For example, if values have been entered in Rounds 1 through 5, the values shown in the Average W/O First & Last will be the average of Rounds columns 2 through 4.

Scroll down to the Agile Planning Poker example below.