What is sprint planning?

Sprint planning is a crucial event in the Agile development process that brings together the product owner, scrum master, and the entire development team to plan and prepare for the upcoming sprint. Sprint planning depends on the sprint duration, and its goal is to align the team on what needs to be done, when, and by whom.

During the sprint planning, the product owner presents a rough idea of the team’s goals and the highest priority items from the product backlog. The development team then reviews the technical aspects of each item and decides on their feasibility to be developed during the current sprint. The team also breaks down the user stories into individual development and testing tasks, selects a set of functions from the prioritized product backlog items, and assigns each task to a team member.

The team members estimate the size of the user stories or story points using techniques such as planning poker and providing an estimate for each task they have selected. This process helps avoid team burnout, as team members choose achievable goals based on their capabilities and estimations rather than a third party setting unrealistic or stressful goals.

Effective sprint planning provides many benefits, including a communication platform for the development team, better prioritization of deliverables, and reduced team burnout. However, there are also some challenges to be aware of. Poor estimations can result in tasks not being completed during the current sprint as planned. Additionally, sprint planning requires a good understanding of the Agile scrum framework. The scrum master and product owner roles should be played by experienced, scrum-certified members, with the development team having a good understanding of scrum.

The article is “What is sprint planning?.“