When tackling a large project, it is essential for teams to come together to strategize and align on their upcoming work. Instead of diving in without a plan, sprint planning ensures every team member knows their role, what to expect, and how to move forward together within the broader context of project management.
What is sprint planning?
Sprint planning is an essential event within the scrum framework that officially starts the sprint. It provides the entire scrum team a platform to collaborate, define their goals, and decide which tasks to prioritize. This planning session is held at the beginning of each sprint, typically lasting 1–4 weeks, depending on the team’s chosen sprint cycle. It ensures that all team members are on the same page, fostering a shared commitment to the sprint’s success.
During sprint planning, teams establish what can be delivered, how the work will be done, and why this work is valuable. The process also includes setting a clear sprint goal that aligns with the overall product vision. Additionally, it involves identifying who will be responsible for each task, reviewing team capacity, and assessing the inputs such as the product backlog. By thoroughly addressing potential challenges and aligning priorities, the team ensures they have a realistic and actionable plan that drives both short-term success and long-term progress.
The above happens in meetings where teams get to review and prioritize the product backlog and make sure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities. These meetings, known as sprint planning meetings, help foster a shared understanding of the work required to achieve the sprint’s objectives and drive cohesive collaboration throughout the sprint, especially when agile project management software tools are in use.
What is a sprint planning meeting?
A sprint planning meeting serves as the kickoff point for every sprint. It sets the tone for collaboration and alignment across the scrum team, which includes the product owner, scrum master, and developers. During the meeting, the product owner provides an updated product backlog, highlighting the most important tasks. The scrum master facilitates the meeting to ensure the team can effectively plan the sprint.
The primary purpose of the sprint planning meeting is to define the sprint goal and clarify the tasks required to achieve that goal. It also serves as a forum for discussing capacity, constraints, and potential blockers that could arise during the sprint. This alignment helps teams stay focused on delivering high-quality work while meeting deadlines.
Some sprint planning meetings might also address dependencies between teams, technical constraints, or unforeseen obstacles, making sure the plan is as detailed and realistic as possible.
How to prepare for a sprint planning meeting
Proper preparation is key to the success of a sprint planning meeting—especially when utilizing project management software to streamline communication and track progress. Without preparation, the meeting can be unproductive, which yields a poorly planned sprint. The product owner plays a critical role in preparing for the meeting, particularly in refining the product backlog ahead of time.
Here’s what preparation involves:
- Backlog grooming: The product owner reviews the product backlog. This is done by removing outdated tasks, adding new user stories based on customer feedback, and breaking down larger user stories into smaller, more manageable pieces. Each item is then assigned story points and prioritized based on importance.
- Understanding team capacity: Know exactly how much work your team can take on during the sprint. Before the meeting, identify any upcoming vacations, non-project tasks, or events that could affect your team’s capacity. Make sure every member’s availability is clear so you can plan realistically and avoid overcommitting. This step ensures that the workload is manageable, which helps the team remain motivated and focused throughout the sprint.
- Clearing dependencies: Identify and resolve external dependencies ahead of time. Whether these involve another team or third-party providers, ensure they are addressed before sprint planning. Clearing dependencies early helps to prevent potential blockers and ensures that tasks can proceed smoothly once the sprint starts.
Effective preparation means that the team can dive into the high-priority work with clarity and confidence, making the sprint planning meeting as productive as possible.
How to run a sprint planning meeting
Structure and clarity are both key for a successful sprint planning meeting. The scrum master leads the meeting, making sure it stays on track and all necessary aspects are covered. Below are the typical steps to expect during a sprint planning meeting:
Establish team availability
Start by assessing everyone’s availability for the sprint. Go through holidays, ongoing projects, or other factors that might reduce capacity. Get clear on who is available and when. You need this information to make realistic commitments.
Set the sprint goal
Define a clear sprint goal. The product owner, in collaboration with the team, should articulate what success looks like for this sprint. This goal is a guiding star that helps the team stay focused on what really matters and ignore distractions. Make sure the goal is specific, achievable, and aligns with the broader project objectives.
Review and select backlog items
Go through the product backlog and select the tasks that will help achieve the sprint goal. Estimate the effort required and prioritize the items based on the team’s capacity. See to it that everyone understands why these tasks are important and how they contribute to the sprint goal. Be realistic—determine how much work is feasible so you don’t overload the team.
Break down tasks
Break down selected backlog items into smaller, actionable tasks. Each task should ideally be scoped to take a day or less to complete. Assign responsibilities and identify any potential risks or dependencies that could slow down progress. This step helps to ensure that each team member knows exactly what they need to do and can easily track progress.
Final review and commitment
Wrap up by reviewing the selected backlog items and confirming everyone’s commitment to the sprint goal. Address any concerns or questions from the team so that everyone is fully on board. When every member has a clear understanding of what’s expected and feels confident in their ability to deliver, the team is all set for a successful sprint.
These steps guarantee the sprint is well-planned, with all team members aligned and confident in their ability to deliver the work.
Sprint planning templates
Tools such as Smartsheet, Confluence, and monday.com offer prebuilt sprint planning templates that streamline the process by organizing tasks, tracking progress, and visualizing team capacity. These templates also prevent your team from overlooking key steps in planning, such as setting the sprint goal or accounting for dependencies.
Confluence
The Confluence sprint planning meeting template is a bit different from the other two. It’s designed to set sprint goals, assess team capacity, and maintain alignment. Since it covers all sprint planning meeting aspects, it opens with a table of contents to direct you to the sections you expect to encounter in the template and is then followed by the individual sections.
Confluence’s template offers structured steps like closing previous meetings, sharing sprint goals, presenting team velocity, and planning capacity—all integrated with Jira. It’s designed to keep all relevant documents and resources in one place, making collaboration easier and minimizing context switching.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet offers a thorough, highly structured sprint planning template to track tasks, dependencies, and timelines. This template includes prebuilt sections for goals, backlog items, task assignments, and sprint metrics, helping teams visualize their workflow and manage productivity effectively. It’s great for agile project management use cases and teams that want a highly detailed template.
monday.com
The monday.com sprint planning template is versatile, colorful, and visually organized, making it easy to use to manage multiple sprints in one board. You can track task progress, manage high-priority labels, and assign responsibilities in real time. For teams looking for flexibility to adjust timelines, monitor multiple sprints, and ensure clear priority labeling, monday’s template is worth considering. The template also allows seamless export to Excel, which makes sharing and analysis straightforward.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Which two topics are usually covered in a sprint planning meeting?
The meeting usually covers what can be accomplished during the sprint, referred to as the sprint goal; and how the selected work will be completed, including task assignments, dependencies, and potential risks.
What is the difference between sprint planning and a scrum meeting?
A sprint planning meeting is held at the start of each sprint to define the sprint goal and backlog, while a scrum meeting, often referred to as daily stand-up, is a short, regular meeting where team members discuss progress and any roadblocks encountered during the sprint.
How long does sprint planning take?
While it depends on the length of the sprint itself, sprint planning typically takes 1–2 hours per week of sprint length. For example, for a two-week sprint, the planning meeting should last around 2–4 hours.