{"id":3440,"date":"2025-05-16T13:39:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T13:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/?p=3440"},"modified":"2026-04-30T07:03:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T07:03:51","slug":"sprint-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/sprint-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"How to do effective Sprint Planning?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Introduction<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Traditional project delivery methodologies involved planning everything upfront with a great amount of details and certainty. However, this could later prove to become chaotic as changes in requirements or priority could not be handled effectively because of the amount of time spent for the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Agile ways of working could to a great extent solve this problem with the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/what-is-just-enough-mindset\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mindset of just enough planning<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and delivering a small chunk of work. When it comes to planning in agile, there are several levels of planning like, Portfolio level, Program level, Milestone level, Sprint level and daily level planning with the focus on just enough. The outcomes are delivered through fixed time cadences which are called Iterations or Sprints.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every cadence starts with a ceremony where the intention is to plan for that particular cadence only! And that ceremony is nothing but a Sprint Planning\/Iteration planning meeting. But, many teams make it just a ceremony and it becomes a monotonous process without making it effective thus diluting the purpose of agile sprint planning. In this blog, the main aim is to learn, explore and understand:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is Sprint planning and what is the main intent behind doing it?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to effectively do a sprint planning meeting?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the purpose of sprint planning<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to timebox the sprint planning meeting?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How does Spring Planning help the team?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Introduction to Sprint Planning<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint planning is one of the ceremonies a scrum team does to basically decide what increment will be delivered in the upcoming sprint\/iteration. This is where the team aligns on priorities, defining the goal and proper direction is set to the team.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>What is sprint planning?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint planning is the first ceremony of any sprint at the offset of which the sprint officially starts. This is a timebox ceremony (4 Hours for a 2 week Sprint) where the team:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Plan for the upcoming sprint<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Define what is the objective or the goal of the sprint<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prioritiseh work items<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Plan how they are going to execute the plan<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The entire scrum team with PO, SM and the development teams come together to plan their work for the next cadence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Why is sprint planning important?<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4914 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Why-is-sprint-planning-important-1.png\" alt=\"Why is sprint planning important\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Why-is-sprint-planning-important-1.png 1200w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Why-is-sprint-planning-important-1-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Why-is-sprint-planning-important-1-1024x683.png 1024w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Why-is-sprint-planning-important-1-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Why-is-sprint-planning-important-1-600x400.png 600w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Why-is-sprint-planning-important-1-150x100.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint Planning sets the direction to the team. It aligns everyone, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/what-should-a-product-owner-not-do\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Product Owner<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/how-to-become-a-scrum-master\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scrum Master<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and Developers to agree and decide what is most important to deliver so that the team focussed on delivering highest value work first<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It increases the predictability of the delivery by committing to the sprint goal as per what the team can in their capacity<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Everyone in the team share their solution, plan collectively in the planning meeting and pull work based on their strengths which promotes collaboration and accountability<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>How to structure a sprint planning meeting?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The only agenda for an agile sprint planning meeting is to ensure that the team is aligned, and have a collective plan to meet the goal and there is a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/product-backlog-vs-sprint-backlog\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sprint backlog<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> ready. Below is a typical structure of a sprint planning meeting for a two weeks sprint:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Context Setting<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> : 5-10 mins where the Scrum Master can set the agenda, norms and expectations<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Define and review the Sprint goal<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> : 10-15 mins where the Product Owner narrates and explains the sprint goal and get consensus\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Review the backlog<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> : 40-50 mins where the Product Owner explains the story, acceptance criteria and NFRs<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Task creation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> : 60-90 mins where the teams break down stories into doable action items and pull work for themselves<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Risks\/Dependencies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: 10-15 mins where SM collates and notes down all the dependencies and risks\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Final Commitment <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: 10-15 mins where the entire team agrees on the Sprint backlog<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Continuous improvement depends on regular <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/sprint-retrospectives\/\">sprint retrospectives<\/a><\/strong> after planning and delivery.<\/p>\n<h2>How to do Sprint Planning?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint planning is the first ceremony with which a sprint officially starts. The end output of a planning meeting is a concrete Sprint Backlog. There are various steps involved in a planning meeting to reach a state where the team has a direction for next 10 days, below are those steps in sequence:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4915 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/How-to-do-Sprint-Planning-1.png\" alt=\"How to do Sprint Planning\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/How-to-do-Sprint-Planning-1.png 1200w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/How-to-do-Sprint-Planning-1-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/How-to-do-Sprint-Planning-1-1024x683.png 1024w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/How-to-do-Sprint-Planning-1-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/How-to-do-Sprint-Planning-1-600x400.png 600w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/How-to-do-Sprint-Planning-1-150x100.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Sprint Planning Meeting<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First set the context of the meeting to the entire audience on:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The agenda of the meeting<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Norms and expectations from the meeting<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quick review of the previous sprint\u2019s achievements and spillovers<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Teams can improve planning accuracy through our <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/workshop\/agile-estimation-and-planning-workshop\/\">Agile Estimation and Planning Workshop<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Start with the big picture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint goals are one of the key aspects of good sprint planning. Use SMART goals, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/okr\/okr-agile-scrum\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OKRs<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> etc which helps teams in drafting an effective sprint goal that will help motivate the team and bring alignment and focus to the planning. Sprint goals should tell the team:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are we trying to achieve?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are we trying to achieve?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Who\u2019s problem are we trying to solve?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How are we going to measure its success?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review prioritised Work items with acceptance criteria<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In order to meet the sprint goal, a PO would have already come up with work items along with their respective acceptance criteria. PO is expected to explain the stories\/work items which will help the team in achieving the goal in detail and resolve all the team\u2019s doubts and give utmost clarity to ensure the solution fits the requirements.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Confirm team capacity<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Calculate the team capacity for the total number of people in your team. Ideally this is something the SM should come prepared with for the planning. Consider the leaves and holidays in the sprint and use the formula,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Sprint Capacity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> = Number of people * Number of story points\/hours per person * Number of days\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discuss velocity<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the teams have historical data available for the number of story points burnt in the last 3 sprints, then calculate the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/velocity-chart-in-agile\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">velocity<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and this helps in planning your sprint even more precisely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Average Velocity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> = Total story points burnt in last 3 sprints \/ 3<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s say a team has burnt 30, 25 and 35 Story points in the last 3 sprints, the average velocity is around 30 Sps and the team can take up to 30+\/-3 Sps.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Break down items into tasks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the main steps of sprint planning is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/user-story-splitting\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">breaking down work items<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> into doable action items. It is important for the development team to understand and derive what contribution goes into finishing a work item. These doable action items are nothing but tasks. This tells us who is contributing in the work item and what is the contribution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Example of Tasks for a login story could include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">API development\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UI Integration\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Test case creation<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Estimate the work<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This part can give the teams on what they can commit to and what not to. Once the tasks are derived, the next step is to estimate each and every work item with man hours\/story points or whatever framework of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/agile-estimation-techniques\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">estimation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the team uses. With this, there could be a fair bit of an idea of what could potentially be the increment in the sprint.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Assign tasks<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Agile ways of working promotes pull culture rather than someone assigning the work. Once the estimates for the tasks are done, it is time for the team to add their names to the tickets which they will be working on. This should also give a direction to all the team members as to what their work in the sprint will be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Document concerns and dependencies<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once the tasks are estimated, and pulled by the development team, the next step is to ensure all the risks and dependencies are mapped to appropriate work items. Almost all project management tools have a way to capture dependencies, in general, ensure:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Risks\/dependencies are linked to the ticket which is blocked\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Capture basic details like assignee, expected date for resolution and a brief description of the dependency<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Reach a consensus<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The last step in a scrum sprint planning is to align with:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The sprint goal decided<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Work items committed based on the capacity\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Assigned tasks\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Plan to resolve dependency and risks\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With this, once you hit the \u201cStart Sprint\u201d button in your <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/agile\/agile-project-management-tools\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">project management tool<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, your sprint planning is complete and your sprint has started.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Purpose of Sprint Planning<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint planning sets the direction for the upcoming sprint by deciding what work will be delivered and how it will be done so and that is the whole intent or purpose of the ceremony. In order to achieve this agenda, from an output perspective, sprint planning also helps teams in achieving the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Determining the Sprint Goal<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint goals give teams a clear cut purpose or direction for the teams to focus in a sprint. It brings alignment within the team and shared outcomes which in turn helps teams in decision making and execution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Selecting Product Backlog Items<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint planning helps teams in identifying the most valuable items which are prioritized based on business goals and customer needs<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Helps in choosing work items which contribute to an outcome driven sprint goal\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Also helps teams select a realistic amount of work that the team can commit to based on capacity \/ velocity\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Creating a Sprint Backlog<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the main outputs of a sprint planning meeting is to create a sprint backlog that is the aligned commitment of what work items they have picked to solve for the sprint goal. Sprint backlog consists of work items, actionable doable tasks which are estimated and ownership identified for the same. Sprint backlog helps teams in visualising the work during the sprint execution as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Planning the Work<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Teams during sprint planning discuss and explore solutions for the requirements. That is they go through all the requirements in detail along with the PO and explore and discuss possible solutions and pick the best fit. While they do this, they also discuss in detail as to what could block the development, what risks they could come across along with when they would want it resolved. This helps the team plan their next sprint in detail and gives everyone a clear understanding of who should work on what and when.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Key Aspects of Sprint Planning<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint planning is the first ceremony with which the sprint starts, while the above section explains the purpose and the best practice, let\u2019s have a look at some key aspects of the ceremony:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Timeboxed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; Every ceremony in a sprint is timeboxed. Timeboxed ensures team members are focussed and achieve their agenda without getting disgraced. Sprint planning is timeboxed usually for about 8 hours for a 4 week sprint, 4 hours for a 2 week sprint and 2 hours for a 1 week sprint<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Collaborative<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; Although PO, SM and Development team members are expected to play their specific roles in the planning meeting, the whole exercise of it is collaborative in nature. That means there is no one person calling shots, there is no one person who is assigning work, not one person who is solutioning. All decisions are made together<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Focus on Short-Term Work &#8211; <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With specific outcome oriented business or user need and work items which are well defined, small in scope and ready to be worked upon, sprint planning promotes just enough planning to a great extent<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Benefits of Sprint Planning<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint planning helps teams in a lot of ways like, starting with clear direction, understanding the priorities and making a realistic plan. Along with these points sprint planning helps teams in:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4916 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Benefits-of-Sprint-Planning-1.png\" alt=\"Benefits of Sprint Planning\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Benefits-of-Sprint-Planning-1.png 1200w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Benefits-of-Sprint-Planning-1-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Benefits-of-Sprint-Planning-1-1024x683.png 1024w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Benefits-of-Sprint-Planning-1-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Benefits-of-Sprint-Planning-1-600x400.png 600w, https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Benefits-of-Sprint-Planning-1-150x100.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Improved Focus &#8211; <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With clearly defined sprint goals and prioritizing only the most important work sprint planning reduces distractions and ensures the efforts are on delivering high value outcomes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Enhanced Communication<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; While planning, teams understand the goals, align with the priorities, plan the solutions, commit together, identify bottlenecks. These decisions and discussions are happening together which ensures that everyone in the team are on the same page<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Increased Agility &#8211; Sprint planning happens every sprint. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This helps teams to quickly respond to feedback from the customer or even changing requirements. This pivoting allows teams to be become more responsive and increase agility<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A lot of teams dilute the intent of a sprint planning meeting by just making it a checklist meeting because they are running sprints. They just ensure there are tasks, and they are assigned to the team without calculating the team capacity. Now, with these antipatterns and misconceptions, teams do not reap the full benefits of the ceremony. Seek support from an external <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/agile-consulting-services\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">agile consulting service company<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> if you are unable to solve this problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is crucial for everyone in the team to understand sprint planning is not just a meeting, it\u2019s a focussed, collaborative foundation which helps teams plan for their next cadence. By defining an outcome driven goal, breaking the requirements, committing to a realistic work and to commonly agree is the main intent of the ceremony. Timeboxing in sprint planning is also essential to ensure that focus or intent is not lost. And where there is one person calling the shots, sprint planning makes no sense. It is a collaborative ceremony which helps increase agility within the teams by focussing on small high value increments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With this, our blog on \u201cSprint Planning: How to Run Effective Sprints?\u201d comes to an end. We hope this has helped our readers to understand the true essence of sprint planning. We would be glad to discuss your unique agility adoption bottlenecks at NextAgile <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/agile-transformation-consulting\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Agile Transformation consulting<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and support your agile journey. Please write to us at <\/span><a href=\"mailto:consult@nextagile.ai\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">consult@nextagile.ai<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0for any feedback or suggestions.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Frequently Asked Questions on Sprint Planning<\/h2>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1. What is the main goal of sprint planning?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main goal of sprint planning is to define, derive and plan work for the upcoming sprint. Captured below:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What to deliver? &#8211; Sprint goal and work items\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to deliver? &#8211; Tasks and estimates\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Realistic Commitment from the team based\u00a0 on the capacity and confidence<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2. Who is responsible for sprint planning in Scrum?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every member of the scrum team\u00a0 plays an important role in contributing to the sprint planning. It is a collective and collaborative effort.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PO sets the tone with sprint goal and the work items\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dev team breaks the work items, estimates and commits based on capacity\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SM facilitates the ceremony and help teams plan effectively\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3. How long should a sprint planning meeting last?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sprint planning meetings are timeboxed and ensure team members are focussed and achieve their agenda without getting disgraced. Sprint planning is timeboxed usually for about 8 hours for a 4 week sprint, 4 hours for a 2 week sprint and 2 hours for a 1 week sprint.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">4. How do you calculate team capacity for sprint planning?<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Calculate the productive hours \/ story points per person per sprint\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Subtract time for sprint meetings and other random meetings\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Identify if there are holidays\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Calculate the leaves for everyone in the team\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Use the formula<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; Number of people * Number of story points\/hours per person * Number of days\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Example:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Consider a team of 5 people with no leaves planned in that sprint but there is a holiday in the sprint. And each person can contribute to 1 Sp per day (6h) the total capacity for the team would be,\u00a0 5*1*9 = 45 Sps\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5. What happens if a sprint plan fails mid-sprint?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In case mid sprint the team realises that the plan was not efficient, we recommend the teams to do the following which has worked in our experience as an<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/agile-consulting-services\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> agile consulting company<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quickly assess the problem\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Re check if the goal can be achieved<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Repriotize and negotiate scope to ensure the sprint goal can be still met<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inform stakeholders proactively about the delays and changes\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carefully check the plan for the remaining days of the sprint to ensure there are not surprises<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction\u00a0 Traditional project delivery methodologies involved planning everything upfront with a great amount of details and certainty. However, this could later prove to become chaotic as changes in requirements or priority could not be handled effectively because of the amount of time spent for the same.\u00a0 Agile ways of working could to a great extent&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3440"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7320,"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3440\/revisions\/7320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextagile.ai\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}