Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience most teams do planning completely wrong. The goals of the planning meeting are simply: 1. Do a relative-size estimate the top n stories in the backlog. (Where n is some number slightly larger than the number of stories that usually fit in an iteration.) 2. Pick the stories to complete in the iteration. That's it. I often see teams: * doing one-by-one story estimation, and debating over how many point…
Do you really think one-by-one story estimation is that bad? At Kongregate it's about 8 people doing it, for 45 minutes or so every couple of weeks. It isn't the most fun thing in the world, but I do think it's helpful to spend between 30 seconds and a few minutes talking about how hard something's going to be. If it seems hard, easier ways are often suggested... If you're not looking at them one by one, what are you…
> talking about how hard something's going to be.
Discussion isn't necessary for estimation purposes when the team agrees on effort. It's only necessary when the team can't agree where to rank the story's effort in relation to other stories, both completed and upcoming. (You need completed stories in there to "anchor" the story points, otherwise the meaning of a point will drift from iteration to iteration.) Once the team has ranked most stories, the team can return to those that they can't rank, and discuss them a little further until they can fit them into the rankings.
[1] It could be that the team isn't communicating enough, and that the planning meeting is the only time they're forced to communicate.