Canonical page: https://tellenze.com/help/refinements

Refine and estimate work together

Prepare an agenda, collect private estimates, and explicitly apply reviewed work definitions.

When to run a refinement

Use Refinements to clarify unfinished work, estimate its complexity together, and apply agreed improvements. A room has an ordered agenda; each item moves through context, private estimation, discussion, and review. Opening a room or submitting an estimate does not itself change the underlying work item.

Refinements must be enabled for your workspace. Rooms require explicit membership, including for administrators. Participants contribute and estimate; facilitators also manage the agenda, reveal estimates, and apply changes. An invitation gives access to the room, while access to its source work remains separate.

Prepare the agenda and invite people

Open Refinements and choose New refinement.
Select projects, teams where enabled, milestones, Focus groups, or individual work items. Narrow by work type and stage. Turn on Include already estimated work when revisiting existing estimates. Archived and completed work are excluded.
Choose Preview work & contributors. Review the agenda, use the arrows to reorder it, and Exclude items that do not belong. Reset exclusions lets you reconsider them.
Select Participants and Co-facilitators. Suggested contributors can help identify people to invite. Every agenda item must already be accessible to every invitee; address Not shared with everyone before opening.
Review the suggested Room title or write your own. Choose Create refinement room, review the saved setup, then Open room & send invitations. Save subsequent setup edits before opening.

Clarify the current work item

The facilitator chooses Refine on a pending agenda item. In Work item, read its description and acceptance criteria, open the source work if needed, and use Add context or a question followed by Share contribution. Contributions are shared discussion; private estimates use a separate control.

Looper can prepare a briefing when available. Check it against the source work and add missing context. The session can proceed manually when Looper is unavailable.

Use I’m ready to signal readiness. Facilitators can start or restart a timer, but its expiry does not advance the session. They decide when to continue.

Estimate privately and discuss the reveal

The facilitator chooses Start estimation. In Estimates, select a complexity or Need more context, add your rationale, and choose Submit private estimate. You can Update private estimate before reveal.

Only you can see your ballot until the facilitator chooses Reveal estimates. The reveal shares names, estimates, and rationales together. Looper's independent estimate appears after human reveal, uses no private ballots, and is excluded from the team's tally.

Discuss differing assumptions. A facilitator can Start another round when the scope changes or more explanation is needed. Each round keeps its own estimates; the final complexity is an explicit facilitator decision.

Review and apply agreed changes

Choose Review changes, then use Suggestions to confirm complexity and review the proposed edits. Ask Looper for suggestions can propose text, relations, and children; Review these suggestions brings them into the editable draft. Review and save them before applying.

Select which title, description, or acceptance criteria to update. Review added or removed relations; contributes to requires an active Business Case accessible to everyone. Child work items can be stories, tasks, or bugs. They begin unassigned and unestimated in the same project or team; Add children to this session includes them in the agenda.

Choose Save reviewed changes, then Apply refinement. Work keeps its current stage unless a configured automation moves it. Outcomes records approved content, complexity, related work, and linked children.

Finish or recover a session

Use Skip item or Defer item, optionally adding a reason, and Revisit eligible items later in the open room. Close room defers unfinished items, preserves applied outcomes, and leaves the session read-only. Closing does not apply unsaved proposals or reveal remaining private ballots.

If work changes during review, compare your preserved draft with current content before keeping it and saving again. Remove unavailable relations or regenerate stale suggestions. Restored access does not revive invalidated generated content. If the connection drops, wait for reconnection and verify the saved state before retrying; if room access is lost, check membership and account access.

Estimate with the workspace method

The admin selects T-shirt sizes (XS–XL) or story points (0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21) under Admin → Settings → Work estimation. Your voting choices, Looper's independent estimate, and the facilitator's final estimate use that method. Need more context remains available in both.

If the admin changes the method, start another round before continuing. Previous rounds keep their original scale and private votes stay private until an eligible reveal; rounds superseded by a method change cannot be revealed. Saved reviews and Looper suggestions from the previous setting must be refreshed. Applied outcomes and existing work-item estimates are preserved without conversion. Work estimated using the previous method is included when finding work that needs estimation.

Estimate together without a workspace

For a quick session with anyone, open Free tools → Planning poker in the public Tellenze website footer. Create a room with your name, choose story points (the default) or T-shirt sizes, and share its link or room code. No account is required.

Pick a card from the deck at the top of the room; ? means you are not sure yet. Use Copy invite link in the header to invite teammates. You can change your card or Clear my estimate until the host chooses Show estimates. Discuss the differences, then use Next round. The host can also Clear estimates before reveal. Leaving the room passes hosting to the next participant. Rooms last 24 hours, hold up to 50 people, and close when everyone leaves. Anyone with the link can join.

Public planning poker stands on its own. It does not use or update your workspace’s work items, refinement rooms, or estimation setting.