We're planning to start with Scrum and preparing some stuff at the moment. We'd like to use planning poker for the refinement. But I can't find the information, if each member of the squad have to estimate the whole story or just his task like testing.
e.g. by story "As user i need a formula to send automatic incidents"
Should a tester, estimate just his test task or should he estimate the whole story incl. testing, programming etc.. Because I don't see, that a tester will be able to estimate the effort for a programmer.
regards collin
When you do planning poker you aren't estimating effort, you are estimating relative size. For example, a 5 point story is bigger than a 3 point story and so on.
The whole team estimates together. They first start by estimating the relative size from their point of view. Then they discuss in detail if there are differences in the estimates. Finally they agree on a concensus size and move on to the next story.
As an example, a team estimates on a story to add some functionality to a web page. One developer has done this kind of work before and estimates 3 points. Another developer is new to this type of work and estimates 5 points. The team's tester is a bit worried about how she is going to test the story so she estimates it as an 8. As there is no guarantee the developer that rated it as a 3 will do the work they decide a higher estimate is better. The developers also listen to the tester explain why it will be difficult to test. The team talk about this for a while. They think of some ways to make the testing easier. Together they agree to go with 5 points for the story.
This kind of process is time consuming at first. But as a team gets used to working together they get better and better at quickly reaching a concensus. The important point is that everyone has their say.