Sprint Planning Cheat Sheet

What to do if you suddenly find yourself running a sprint planning.

There are many ways to run a sprint planning. This is one possible way to help you get started using some tips and tricks I have learnt over the many years being part of them:

1. Work out capacity of team:
   - Work out the teams average velocity as a guide (last 3 sprints usually will do).
   - Work out when people are on holiday to help with knowing your capacity and if there will be any bottlenecks.
2. Review items not done in the previous sprint and ensure details are correct ( such as status — especially if something should be marked as done or it won’t count towards a team’s velocity’s).
3. Create a new sprint if there is not one already.
4. Close the previous sprint and put any remaining items into the new sprint.
5. Go through these items carried over and re-estimate the story points on them Also evaluate whether they should be continued in the next sprint (i.e. they are blocked or no longer high priority).
6. PO to talk about the goal for the sprint.
7. Go through each item in priority order and discuss, estimate and bring into the sprint where appropriate. Keep an eye on how many story points have been included as you go (you don’t have to fill the whole capacity).
8. Where you know there is work to be done, but its not fully defined, create a placeholder item or leave in headroom for this where you can.
9. Once items are selected for the sprint, do the following:
   - Check that different skill sets (i.e. FE/BE) have a good amount of work
   - Discuss the sprint flow (i.e. are the items broken down with a good stream of working going to QA or will it be a manic rush at the end to get everything tested)
10. Ensure there are some more items ready to pull into the sprint if needed
11. Get everyone to give a confidence score at the same time of completing everything in a sprint. (1–5: 5 the highest). Discuss and edit the sprint as needed.
12. Go round each person to see if they are happy to commit to the sprint.
13. Agree the sprint goal and set the dates on the sprint
14. Start the sprint!