7 things to do during the Sprint Planning
During the courses I teach as a Professional Scrum Trainer, as well as the reactions that I get to my articles, there’s one thing that always stands out to me: practice is vastly different than theory.
A previous article already covered Eight Things to do During the Sprint Review, this time I want to dive into Sprint Planning.
The purpose is to forecast, not to set in stone
Sprint Planning is the first event of the Sprint. The outcome of this event is the Sprint Goal and a plan for the Scrum Team to achieve it. The whole Scrum Team participates in this event.
To create a plan, three main topics are discussed:
- Why is this Sprint valuable?
- What can be Done this Sprint?
- How will the forecasted work be Done?
The maximum Sprint Planning timebox for a full month’s Sprint is eight hours. For the shorter Sprints, it’s usually less. Don’t take that for an automated downscaling. For a two-week Sprint, the timebox is still eight hours, except often it just takes less time.
Quite often, the first response to the timebox is along the lines of “Woah, that’s way too much time! We’re done in an hour tops.” And then proceed without a clear Sprint Goal…
