Interactive Session

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Overview

The Interactive session is a powerful and essential tool that seamlessly integrates Planning Poker® game into the Jira Cloud environment.

By utilizing the Interactive session, teams can easily initiate discussions, reach a consensus, and generate accurate estimations. The session promotes effective communication and enables participants to share their insights in real-time, improving the accuracy and efficiency of the estimation process and leading to a more informed decision-making process.

Who should use Interactive session?

It’s best for teams working in the same time zone, both remote and co-located. This is because each participant estimates individually during a live session.
It’s better suited for more experienced teams.

Requirements

The team members must participate in the session at the same time.

Mechanics of the Interactive Session

Within the Interactive session, there are three different roles available:

Moderator – has the ability to configure settings and manage the session. A session has either a single moderator or everyone is a moderator. Only the moderator can select the issue that will be estimated.
Participants – can participate in estimation sessions, cast their votes, and contribute to the decision-making process. Participants can have moderator privileges that enable full session control.
Observers – have read-only access and can view the estimation sessions and results without actively participating. Every participant can switch between being an observer and an estimator at any moment.

Here's a brief step-by-step overview of how the Interactive session unfolds:

After configuring session settings, the moderator starts the session.
Participants join the session either as estimators or observers.
The session displays a backlog view with issues to be estimated.
Participants estimate the issue selected by the moderator by providing their individual estimates.
After everyone’s votes are revealed by the moderator, the session enters the discussion phase.
The participants discuss their estimates and reach a consensus. Participants can update their personal estimates if needed.
The moderator approves the final estimation for the selected issue.
The process repeats for each issue in the backlog.
Once all the issues are estimated, the moderator finishes the session for all participants.

🎯 Index

How to Create an Interactive Session

Step 1: Open the “Create Session” Screen

Click here to expand...

1. For service/software projects, navigate to the project’s left-side menu, and click Agile Poker.

2. On the Estimations screen, hover over Interactive, and click Create Session.

Step 2: Create Interactive Session

3. Name your session (up to 100 characters) or go with a pre-set one.

4. Optionally save the current configuration as your personal default, which means it will be used when creating new sessions for the current board. The following fields will be remembered: session type, estimation field, participants, observers, estimation values, suggested estimate, and timers.

Default configurations are saved per user per board, meaning separate default settings for sessions on other boards. Moreover, this feature is shared across all session types. For example, participants list saved during an Interactive session creation will be pre-populated when creating sessions of any other type.

5. Select the session type (Public/Private).

6. Activate the Multi-field estimation toggle to estimate several fields at once. Refer to this document to learn how this works.

7. Select one of the commonly used sets of estimation values, or create a custom set your team prefers. These values will be available to the participants.

While the estimation field must be in a numeric or time format, you can display strings for voting values. Simply use the format of "string equals number," for example, "Small=1".

Starting from version 100.4.2, time values are also supported. You can use values like "1w" for 1 week, "1d" for 1 day, "1h" for 1 hour, "1m" for 1 minute, or their combinations like "1w 2d 3h 4m".

8. Select what suggested estimate you will see once all votes are done.

9. Configure the timer values in seconds and launch a timer to limit discussion or voting time, which can help your team stay on track and save time.

Click Next and you’ll be directed to the Manage participants page.

Step 3: Manage Participants

10. Choose a Moderator to give them exclusive control over the estimation session. Otherwise, everyone can control the session.

11. Pick the people that estimate with you.

12. Select the observers that are exempt from providing estimates. This may include rookies, individuals external to the team, Scrum masters, or project managers who won’t do estimations.

Click Next and you’ll be directed to the Select issues page.

Step 4: Select Issues

13. Select a Jira field that would be the destination for session estimates.

14. Select the issues that will be estimated during the session. For more details on filtering issues, refer to this documentation.

15. From the Issue Types dropdown, define if you'd like to estimate Epics or Sub-tasks as well.

Click Start session and the estimation will start. Keep in mind that you can create and run multiple Interactive sessions in parallel.

Session configuration can be edited even after it has been started. You can do so by clicking the cog icon or the Paticipants button on the session page.

How to Join the Interactive Session

Team members can join an active session from the Agile Poker session selection page or the All Sessions page.
Alternatively, the moderator can share the session link with the team by copying it from the address bar, the breadcrumbs section, or from the participants' management menu (click Participants from the top right to open it).

Are you a participant getting an error message when trying to access a session? That could be because the session you’re trying to access is a private session. Private sessions can only be accessed by Jira users added to the participants list. To resolve this issue, please reach out to the moderator for assistance.

Estimation Process

The estimation process within an Interactive session follows a structured workflow. Here's what happens step by step:

1. Entering the Session

Upon entering the session, each new participant is prompted to go through navigation tips. To review the tips again, click the three dots icon at the right-hand side of the screen, and then click Take a tour.

In the Participants panel, you can see your team members participating in the estimation. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Moderator: Identified by a crown icon on their avatar.
Inactive Participants: Avatars are greyed-out.
Observers: Indicated by an eye icon next to their avatars. To become an observer, click the eye icon next to Participants. To join the estimation, click the card icon.

2. Starting the Estimation

Once the session is active, the moderator uses the Estimate first issue button to start estimating the first item from the backlog view or simply clicks on an issue.

At every stage of the session, the status at the top will help with understanding what is expected from a participant. The status depends on the participant type. Below the status, everyone in the poker session can see the issue selected for estimation.

3. Using the Backlog & Issue Details

Here is the preview of the backlog filtered and selected by the moderator.

Backlog Overview
- Provides details of the selected issue (type, name, ID, and any relevant information for estimation).
Backlog View Management (Moderator): The moderator can manage the visibility of several extra fields in the backlog view, like epics, versions, assignee, and priority. Here is everything the moderator can do:
- filter the issues for a particular session by clicking on the edit icon next to “Picked issue” and “JQL query” to modify them;
- select a user story for estimation by clicking on the story;
- open issue details in a dialog window for viewing or editing by clicking on the issue key;
- hide/unhide backlog list;
- observe the total Story Points value of a sprint, or filtered part of the backlog next to the “Estimate”;
- reload the issue list if necessary.

In case of the presence of issues with Epic or Sub-task type, their estimates will be summed up to the total Sprint/Section estimate. For Team-managed projects and Scrum boards of Company-managed projects, all epics are displayed together in a dedicated section located at the top.

Quick Issue Details:
- Appears on the right-hand side when clicking on an issue and displays a set of standard issue fields.
- To view full issue details or edit any issue field, click Edit issue button from the issue details for the selected issue or click on any issue key from the backlog view for issue details of a specific issue. All of the standard Jira issue options are available here without the need of opening the issue in a separate tab:

4. Voting & Submitting Estimates

Participants submit their estimation values for the selected issue. To submit, participants use the “Your estimation for …” section, which displays estimation values set for this session.

View Options
- Participants can easily switch between dropdown and card view by clicking on the view button next to it.
- For the dropdown view, the “Triangulation” panel is also available. It displays resolved issues with the same estimation value. Issues for triangulation are selected from the same project, with priority given to recently closed issues of the same type or with the same components.

Reference issues are saved to the user profile of the user configuring them, so the next time such a user creates a session, the reference issues will be pre-populated.

Each participant submits their own estimations for the selected issue. The discussion phase starts after all estimates have been provided or after the moderator clicks the Show estimates button. Selected values are then shown next to the team members' avatars.

5. Discussion Phase

The team can see all the estimation values from the Participants section. Participants engage in discussions, sharing their insights and perspectives on the estimates.

A moderator can launch a timer to limit discussion or voting time to save time. Timer options can be configured in session configuration.

6. Updating Personal Estimates

Participants have the opportunity to revise their estimates based on the discussion and new insights. Personal estimates can be updated by clicking on the pencil icon next to the individual estimate:

7. Final Estimation Selection

Once the discussion is done, the final estimation is selected and approved by clicking on Save or Save & next on the moderator’s side. The reset option restarts the voting process for the issue being estimated.

And with that, the estimation process for this particular issue is over!

8. Leaving/Finishing the Session

When a team member needs to leave the estimation process, they should use the Leave session option found in the Session menu. This will remove the member from the Participants list, and their avatar will no longer be visible in the Participants panel.

If the session is public, the participant can rejoin at a later time. However, for private sessions, they will need to be reinvited in order to join again.
If a user simply closes the tab without using the "Leave session" option, they will remain in the participant list, and this can impact the estimation process. The final estimation process will not be automatically triggered when each estimator submits their estimate.
If a person leaves the session, they can be removed from the Participants menu.

In the event that all issues have been estimated, a moderator can conclude the session for all participants by selecting the Finish session option.