The Numbers Tell a Story: What 5 Million Planning Poker Votes Reveal About Team Estimation

Analysis of over 5 million planning poker votes from Kollabe reveals that teams overwhelmingly prefer simpler estimates, with the number 3 accounting for roughly one-quarter of all votes. Most notably, engineers customize the standard Fibonacci sequence to eliminate large cards, suggesting that practical constraints matter more than mathematical elegance. The study highlights that disagreement in estimation rounds is not a failure but a feature—with only 16.6% of rounds reaching unanimous consensus, indicating productive discussion is where true alignment happens.