Blog - Unleashing the Power of Sprint Planning

A goal without a strategy is just a desire, as the proverb says. Particularly when it comes to sprint planning, that is true.

The sprint preparation approach enables teams to gradually immerse themselves in the upcoming sprint, examine each work item and potential problems, and make sure everyone is on the same page rather than going in headlong.

In the sections that follow, we delve into the art of sprint planning and offer advice on how to conduct productive meetings and streamline your sprint planning procedure.

What is Agile sprint planning?

The first stage of the Agile process is sprint planning, during which teams get together to determine exactly what tasks will be accomplished during the following sprint. By ensuring that your team is aware of the sprint’s objectives and your strategy for achieving them, this phase sets the stage for your sprint.

How sprint planning relates to the Scrum process

Just to refresh your memory, Agile is a project management philosophy, and one of the Agile approaches that software development teams frequently employ is Scrum. Teams may take on challenging projects with the aid of the meetings, roles, and tools included in the Scrum process. The sprint method is frequently used by teams who may not follow traditional Scrum principles.

The Scrum process is divided into a number of sprints, which are typically two to four weeks long. Scrum ceremonies, often known as meetings, are held during each sprint to plan, direct, and evaluate the project’s progress. The opening Scrum ceremony is sprint planning.

Who attends the sprint planning meeting?

The product owner, scrum master, and development team will all be present at the sprint planning meeting in accordance with the Scrum methodology.

Product owner: individual charged with maximizing the product’s value.

Scrum Master: servant leader responsible for leading the project through the Scrum process

Development team: composed of team members that will execute the work, including software engineers, technical analysts, business analysts, solution architects, and IT operations team members.

What is accomplished in the sprint planning process?

At the end of the sprint planning process, teams walk away with two key artifacts: a sprint goal and a sprint backlog.

Sprint goal: The goal is a one-to-two-sentence description of what the team plans to accomplish in the upcoming sprint.

Sprint backlog: The sprint backlog works as a to-do list for the upcoming sprint. During the sprint planning process, the team chooses which items in the product backlog they want to work on during the upcoming sprint, focusing on the most important items.

How long should a sprint planning meeting last?

Each week of the sprint should only require two hours of planning. For instance, a two-week sprint’s sprint planning meeting would last no more than four hours.

Benefits of sprint planning

The Scrum methodology’s sprint planning approach is really helpful. It enables teams to coordinate on upcoming tasks and talk about any potential hiccups before they delay the project schedule.

Benefits also include:

• Aligning a team around a shared goal

• Outlining clear priorities for the upcoming sprint

• Identifying potential bottlenecks before you encounter them

• Communicating team capacity and adjusting the sprint plan accordingly

• Creating a plan for how the team will achieve the stated goal

How to prepare for a sprint planning meeting

Before your team gathers for the sprint planning meeting, the product owner should refine the product backlog. This is known as backlog grooming.

Backlog grooming, sometimes referred to as backlog refinement or backlog management, consists of:

• Removing user stories or tasks that are outdated

• Adding new user stories based on recent customer feedback

• Splitting large user stories into smaller items

• Prioritizing user stories

• Assigning or reassigning story points and estimates

• Proactively identifying roadblocks related to the product backlog items

After the product owner completes the backlog grooming process, they should have a backlog of “sprint ready” stories to discuss at the sprint planning meeting.

How to run an effective sprint planning meeting

We’ll go over how to run a productive meeting to position your team for success in the following sprint now that you are aware of what a sprint planning meeting is.

1. Establish team availability

It’s useful to estimate the team’s availability for the duration of the sprint at the beginning of the sprint planning meeting. Keep track of any holidays, company-wide breaks, or other commitments that can affect team members’ capacity to accomplish their work.

2. Set the sprint goal

Next, the product owner—prepared with their updated product backlog—will share how the value of the product can be improved during the sprint. As a group, the team will decide on a one-to-two-sentence description of the sprint goal that outlines the objective of the sprint.

Sprint goals are often centered around new features requested by customers or solving problems of the existing product by fixing issues or adding components.

As you’re setting your sprint goal, remember to keep it as concise as possible. Broad goals that cram too many tasks into one sprint can hurt your ability to deliver on time and impact your sprint velocity.

3. Review backlog items

Once the sprint goal is established, the team will talk through the product backlog together to decide what items should be included in the sprint. The team will discuss the estimate and scope, make sure the descriptions are clear and accurate, and establish the definition of done for each item.

It’s important to keep team capacity and velocity top of mind when estimating and scoping items for the sprint. As a general rule, the total number of story points for the selected items should not exceed the team’s velocity.

4. Determine how the work will get done

Teams may be able to skip this step if the product owner has already broken down tasks into story point values. If that hasn’t been done, then the team will discuss each item they plan to work on in the sprint, paying special attention to potential risks, dependencies, and item complexities. The backlog items should be broken into work items of one day or less, however there may be exceptions depending on the type of work being completed.

While it’s important to ensure the team is aware of each backlog item and walk through potential roadblocks, remember that the sprint backlog is a flexible roadmap. You can change, add, or remove items from the backlog list if it helps you achieve your sprint goal.

5. Gauge team confidence in the sprint plan

Now that you have your sprint goal and your sprint backlog, it’s time to finish with a vote of confidence and a question-and-answer session to make sure all team members are on the same page.

Teams often use the fist to five or fist of five Agile decision-making technique to get a team consensus on a sprint plan. The simple process involves every team member holding up a closed fist or a number of fingers conveying their level of confidence in the plan. Five fingers translates to full confidence, whereas a closed fist would indicate a low confidence level.

Any team member who holds up less than three fingers is given the opportunity to share their hesitations. The group can then work together to address the issue until all team members hold up three or more fingers. For teams in remote settings, they can drop their confidence number in a chat rather than holding up their hand.

How to improve your sprint meetings

Once your team gets into the groove of sprint planning, these meetings will become second nature. Below, we’ve included a few tips to help your team get accustomed to the sprint planning process and set them up to achieve the sprint goal.

Update the definition of done if necessary

Definition of done is a list of requirements that should be achieved before a product backlog item can be considered complete. It includes nonfunctional requirements as well as process-related requirements.

Prepare Scrum team capacity and velocity ahead of time

Knowing your team’s velocity and capacity will help you choose the right number of sprint backlog items to complete in the upcoming sprint.

Sprint velocity defines how much work a team can accomplish during a sprint. To gauge this metric, you’ll need data from a few sprints so you can calculate an average velocity. To do this, you’ll simply add up the completed user story point estimates at the end of each sprint.

Capacity is another metric related to team availability. This metric is calculated by multiplying the total number of Scrum team members by the total number of working days.

Incorporate retrospective insights into planning

During the planning phase, be sure to touch base on your most recently completed sprint to see if there’s an opportunity to incorporate any retrospective learnings into your next sprint. This will help support your team and improve every sprint, which will ultimately lead to better outcomes.

Understand that Scrum planning is an empirical process

Teams will learn by doing and improve upon their process as they learn from past mistakes, so don’t aim to plan every minute of your sprint. Instead, focus on your goal and confirm there’s enough backlog for the team to get started.