Estimation decks

TeamRetro comes with six planning poker decks, so you can estimate in a way that fits how your team works. Each deck gives you a different scale for talking about relative effort, complexity, and uncertainty. From quick “bucket” sizing through to more detailed number-based options.

There isn’t a single “best” deck. The right one is the deck that helps your team align quickly and estimate consistently for the kind of planning you’re doing:

• Early discovery / roadmap / triage: Keep it lightweight and avoid false precision.
• Sprint planning & delivery: Use a numeric deck so you can track velocity over time.
• High uncertainty: Pick a deck with bigger jumps as work gets larger.
• Repeatable work: Choose a deck with finer steps for easier comparison.

Want a deeper walkthrough? See our guide.

Deck Types:

Scrum

(0, ½, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, ?, ☕)

A Planning Poker-friendly story point scale with small sizing (½), an explicit “very large” bucket (20), plus unknown (?) and break (☕).

• Good for: Most Scrum teams estimating for sprint planning and tracking velocity.

Fibonacci

(0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ?, ☕)

Non-linear jumps that get less precise as items grow. Useful when uncertainty increases with size.

• Good for: Product/feature work where larger stories need clearer separation and discussion.

Sequential

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ?, ☕)

Linear steps with even gaps for more fine-grained sizing.

• Good for: Well-understood, repeatable work (maintenance, small enhancements), especially if your team prefers consistent increments.

Half-Card

(1, 1½, 2, 2½, 3, 3½, 4, 4½, 5, 5½, ?, ☕)

Adds “in-between” options for tighter precision in a small range.

• Good for: Teams estimating mostly small-to-medium items who want more granularity without switching to time-based estimates.

Power of 2

(1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, ?, ☕)

Exponential growth that strongly signals uncertainty as size increases.

• Good for: Early-stage initiatives, platform/infrastructure, spikes/R&D, or work with wide variance.

T-shirt size

(XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL, ?, ☕)

Non-numeric buckets that are easy to discuss and align on, without over-optimising the number.

• Good for: Discovery, roadmap sizing, cross-functional workshops, or stakeholder-friendly estimation; often as a first pass before converting to points for delivery.