Planning Poker Simulation with the Humanoid Robot NAO in Project Management Courses

Learning how to predict effort is important for any project team. In agile teams, Planning Poker is one of the most popular estimation game-based techniques used to come to a consensus about how much work should be done in a given iteration. Usually, the product owner or scrum master facilitates planning poker with their team. This paper presents the application of the humanoid robot NAO as a robotic coach and facilitator of planning poker with university students in two project management courses. The paper describes the design of the planning poker simulation, the programming of the robot, as well as the implementation and evaluation of the application “Planning poker with NAO” in two on-campus pilot studies with 29 university students. The evaluation aimed to investigate students’ perceptions of the design of the simulation and its effects on students’ understanding of agile estimation. The results show that the design of planning poker facilitated by the NAO robot was helpful for students to understand the concept of relative estimation in agile teams.