Each deck of Agile Cards includes 45 cards (+ some help cards). These include the following:
- Estimation/Planning Poker. This is the classic version popularized by Mike Cohn. The cards are used to estimate quantifiable numeric properties, such af expected effort or business value. Some of the cards have a special meaning: “0” means that this item is so small that we can’t be bothered about it during planning, we just include it, when we operate in that corner of the work. The Coffee Cup is a signal about taking a break, “I can’t do it anymore!“. The Question Mark really shouldn’t be used, only if someone really says: “I have no clue what you strange people are talking about!“.
- T-shirt Estimation. This is for the situations, where the number series in Estimation Poker, seems to be too detailed or where there is not enough time for this level of detail. Some Teams use T-shirt estimation early in a project where knowledge still is scarce and fragmented. It is normal praxis to let Small, Medium og Large respectively correspond to 2, 5 and 13.
- Kano Estimation. is used if a Team adopts marketing guru professor Kano’s principle of categorizing features and qualities, read more here….
- Cynefin Estimation. These cards are used to get people’s evaluation of the type of knowledge they think they possess about an item. They can for example be used to query a Team about what they know about the solution of a certain item. The principle is defined by Dave Snowden and is called Cynefin, It is a way to evaluate our cognitive relation to an item: Do we already know how things work and should be solved, do we know where to find knowledge (research, analysis), or do we have certain experiments, that can be performed in order to find knowledge. Or perhaps we are lost and clueless and have to rely on gut feeling and intuition.
- Confidence Estimation. This series of cards uses a technique from Daniel Kahneman. When a given discussion approaches its end, then ask the group or Teamet to express their opinion about how sure they are that they have reached a reasonable common understanding concerning the topic discussed. Quite often someone, who perhaps felt he did not really get to express his concerns, will here have the opportunity to signal that he is not quite comfortable with the situation. Sometimes this can catch on of those outliers where risks or dangers were ignored in the heat of the moment.
- Online indicator cards. Extra cards to signal with in an online meeting
Read an in-depth description of the cards in English or Danish.
