Remote planning poker: a practical setup and session checklist

Set up the session before the call

• Choose a small set of near-term stories with an outcome, completion criteria and relevant links.
• Start a room and send the invitation through a channel your team already uses.
• Ask everyone to join with a recognizable display name and confirm they can see the same story.
• Keep the issue tracker or document with durable decisions open alongside the table.
• Choose one facilitator and agree on how to request clarification or a break.

Make a working agreement for remote voting

Ask for questions before numbers. Then give everybody a short silent thinking period. People who finish first should keep their card private rather than announce a likely estimate on the call.

Make room for written preparation if speaking spontaneously is difficult. A participant can review the story before the meeting and bring questions. Avoid treating a slow vote as a problem: the person may be checking an assumption that others missed.

A repeatable routine for every story

1. Read the intended outcome and confirm what is included.
2. Invite questions, especially about testing, dependencies and failure cases.
3. Let everyone choose privately. Reveal when the team is ready.
4. Hear the widest-separated estimates first, without asking anybody to defend themselves.
5. Capture a changed assumption, then vote again or agree on the next step.
6. Record the accepted estimate and any follow-up in the team's durable backlog.

Use the atmosphere without losing the conversation

Characters, emotes and paper tosses can make a remote session feel more social. They are optional. Quiet table hides social animations and mutes their sounds on your device, while the separate audio menu lets you choose table effects, spoken reactions and volume.

Keep voices off when they compete with the call. There is no need to enable every effect to use the estimation tool. People who prefer reduced motion receive a simpler paper-toss arrival indicator instead of a flying animation.

When somebody cannot connect or vote

First confirm the room is still within its 24-hour lifetime and that the participant has joined with the correct link or six-character code. A reconnecting indicator means the live connection is being restored; wait for it before assuming a card was submitted.

If sound is missing, open Table audio settings, enable the desired switch and use Test effects or Test voice. Check the tab and system volume too. Browser audio needs a user interaction before playback. If votes are disabled, the host may not have started a story, the round may already be revealed, or the connection may be unavailable.

• Read the full help and FAQ ↗

Finish with decisions, not just a call recording

Before ending, confirm which items received estimates, which need splitting and who will answer unresolved questions. PointRoom rooms and their ledgers are temporary. Copy accepted estimates into your own backlog before closing the room; there is no automatic issue-tracker synchronization.