Planning Poker Facilitation Tips for Scrum Masters
New scrum master here. My planning poker sessions feel chaotic - people talk over each other, dominant personalities hijack discussions, quiet devs don't participate. What are the facilitation secrets to make these sessions productive?
Establish ground rules upfront: (1) No one speaks until cards are revealed. (2) Highest and lowest estimates speak first to explain reasoning. (3) Everyone else stays silent until asked. (4) 3-minute timer for discussion, visible on screen. (5) If no consensus after 2 rounds, defer to tech lead or PO decides.
This structure kills the chaos and gives introverts space to contribute.
Use the 'silent estimation' technique. Everyone writes down their estimate privately before revealing. Prevents anchoring where junior devs just copy the senior's estimate. We saw 3x more estimate variance (in a good way) after implementing this.
Call on quiet people directly. "Priya, you voted 8 while most voted 5. What are you seeing that we might be missing?" This signals their input matters and often surfaces critical technical concerns the loud people overlooked.
When discussion veers off-topic, interrupt immediately: "Parking lot that - let's stay focused on estimating THIS story." Keep a visible parking lot list, address items after planning. Ruthless timeboxing is your friend.