Discover the process of sprint planning and useful dos and dont's to make sure you set your team up for success.
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Resource vs Project Management: Where Doges Float Fit? Assign the best team for the job, every time. Try for freeSprint planning is an essential part of the Scrum process that provides direction, focus, and clarity for the team, helping to ensure customers get value quickly.
Team leaders who prioritize workload management take the extra time to plan each sprint carefully, ensuring their teams are working on the right tasks, and delivering high-quality work that meets stakeholders' expectations. If this sounds like a good goal for you and your team, keep reading!
We'll explore the key considerations for effective sprint planning, cover some critical do’s and don’ts, and provide you with the tools and guidance needed to ensure your sprint planning process goes smoothly.
Sprint planning is the process of determining the scope and delivery timeline of a project's development over a fixed period of time. It’s done at the beginning of each sprint when the team defines what they plan to work on for the next sprint or iteration (typically two to four weeks).
When done well, sprint planning plays a vital role in resource and capacity estimation, and can make the difference between project success and failure.
The goal of each sprint planning session is to determine what will be done next and begin to plan how to achieve the next goal. During this session, the team:
This entire process typically takes one to two hours for each week of the sprint, meaning sprint planning for a two-week sprint should take no more than four hours.
This meeting involves the entire Scrum team, including the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the development team:
Together, they determine which items can be completed within the next sprint.
By the end of the sprint planning meeting, each person should understand what’s coming next for the team and who needs to do what—and then it's off to the races for that iteration.
Sprint planning is important because it helps the team collaboratively lay the foundation for a successful and productive sprint, before they get started with actual work.
Without proper sprint planning, the team risks working on the wrong tasks, taking on more work than they can handle, and facing delays in the project's completion. This can lead to significant problems, including missed deadlines, budget overruns, and dissatisfied stakeholders.
For example, suppose a team jumps right into the sprint without taking the time to plan out their tasks. In that case, they might waste the first few days trying to figure out what needs to be done, instead of completing critical work. They might work on low-priority tasks, miss key deliverables, and frustrate stakeholders who are counting on the project being completed on time.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen this scenario time and time again. By the time a team gets organized enough to know what should be done, the sprint ends. The worst possible outcome is that the team decides Scrum isn’t for them after all, and most often reverts to their previous methodology or throws the idea of time-boxed work increments out the window.
The truth is, if you want to be a successful project or development leader, you need to spend the time and effort necessary to complete sprint planning for every sprint or iteration. This is how you can reap the benefits of the Scrum methodology.
The Sprint Planning Meeting can be divided into two parts:
Preparation is the key success factor for an effective sprint planning session. But, each role on the scrum team has different responsibilities when it comes to preparing for an effective sprint planning session. Here are tips to prepare for the sprint planning session for each role:
A well-prepared Product Owner, Scrum Master, and development team can help ensure a smooth and productive sprint planning session.
The Scrum Master is often responsible for facilitating this meeting and ensuring that it is effective and productive.
Here’s an example agenda that may come in handy:
At the end of sprint planning, the team should have a clear understanding of the sprint goal, a prioritized sprint backlog, and a shared knowledge of what tasks need to be done.
With the conclusion of an effective Sprint Planning Session, the sprint is locked and loaded and the team should be ready to go!
Allocate work based on team capacity to plan ahead for sprints. Schedule projects to ensure your team knows what they're working on and when.
When it comes to sprint planning, there are a few things that you should do and some things you should avoid doing in order to make the most out of your time. Here are some common “dos” and "don'ts" of sprint planning to keep in mind:
By keeping these “dos” and "donts" in mind, you can avoid common pitfalls during sprint planning and ensure that your team is on the right track for a successful sprint.
I have personally implemented Scrum with many teams throughout my work history. If you are implementing Scrum in your organization or team, the Sprint Planning event is one of the most critical when helping build confidence among a new team working in the Scrum methodology.
In late 2019, I implemented Scrum in a training development team. We were under a tight timeline to implement a customer-facing learning program. The team was small, and they needed clear guidance on what to work on first after we had identified a whole list of classes we wanted to create. I acted as the Product Owner in this group, so I prioritized the backlog of courses based on what users would experience first, knowing that we could develop more advanced courses as users progressed through the lower-level courses.
With this team, each week we would start with a meeting to look through what we accomplished last week and plan for the week ahead. This was like a mini sprint review, retrospective, and sprint planning all in one. We were a small team of four, so this went pretty smoothly and quickly, especially because I always came prepared with a prioritized backlog. After our sprint planning meeting, we were off to the races! Over time, I taught the team about Scrum, and one of the team members was so impressed with the success of the process that he became Scrum Master certified and is now a Product Owner for the company’s largest product!
All this to say, Scrum is not limited to software development teams. Scrum and sprint planning can work for many different types of products, projects and initiatives. If you are working towards a goal that can be tackled step by step, Scrum might be a great way to break the work into smaller bite-sized pieces and help you get started with a plan.
Sprint planning ensures the team is aligned to the upcoming sprint's scope, commits to the deliverables, identifies potential risks and challenges, and stays focused and motivated throughout the sprint.
Conducting an effective sprint planning meeting requires involving the entire team and data-driven forecasting. With the tips we shared in mind, you can conduct a successful sprint planning meeting and deliver value to the stakeholders.