Sprint planning

Description

Sprint Planning initiates the Sprint by laying out the work to be performed for the Sprint. This resulting plan is created by the collaborative work of the entire Scrum Team.

The Product Owner ensures that attendees are prepared to discuss the most important Product Backlog items and how they map to the Product Goal. 

Sprint Planning addresses the following topics:

• Define the sprint goal (Why is this Sprint valuable?)
• Define the sprint backlog (What can be Done this Sprint?)
• Decomposing Product Backlog items into smaller work items of one day or less. (How will the chosen work get done?)

Structure

The team selects which items from a prioritized list of ready product backlog items (usually expressed as user stories) they forecast they will be able to complete during the sprint.

Here’s a sample agenda for the first part of sprint planning:

• What is the goal for this sprint? Use this as a decision filter to determine which product backlog items to include in the sprint.
• What product backlog items are ready and contribute toward the sprint goal?
• Who is available for this sprint? Identify any vacations, holidays, other activities that will impact everyone’s availability during the sprint.

Common pitfalls

Sprint planning can become ineffective when your team does not have a properly refined product backlog from which to draw product backlog items. If you find yourself in this situation you inevitably have to spend time during sprint planning developing a better understanding of the product backlog items, which may include splitting stories, and estimating.

Another issue arises when you don’t establish a specific goal for the sprint and wind up with a set of unrelated items that the team has to work on. This can result in your team performing a sprints worth of work but not feeling as though they’ve made a lot of progress.

https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/sprint-planning
https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html#sprint-planning