Sprint planning
Sprint planning is the Scrum event that begins each Sprint: the whole Scrum Team agrees on why the sprint is valuable, what can be delivered, and how the work will get done. Its output is a Sprint Goal and a sprint backlog (the selected work plus a plan for it).
Also known as
planning · “the planning meeting” · iteration planning (the generic, non-Scrum term) · “sprint kickoff”
Don't confuse with
Backlog refinement: refinement is an ongoing activity to get items ready before planning. Sprint planning is the single event that starts the sprint using those ready items. Walking into planning to first discover what the items mean is a common anti-pattern.
The three topics
The 2020 Scrum Guide frames planning around three questions:
- Why is this sprint valuable? The Product Owner proposes how the product could increase in value; the team crafts a single Sprint Goal.
- What can be done this sprint? The Developers pull items from the top of the Product backlog into the sprint, as much as they forecast they can finish, based on past capacity (velocity).
- How will the chosen work get done? The Developers break items into a plan of work (tasks), enough to start.
Logistics
- Attendees: the whole Scrum Team (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers). Others may be invited for advice.
- Timebox: at most 8 hours for a one-month sprint, proportionally shorter for shorter sprints (≈2 hours for a one-week sprint).
- Outputs: the Sprint Goal + the sprint backlog.
In plain English
The meeting where the team decides the one thing this sprint is for, picks the work that serves it, and sketches how to build it.
See also
- Sprint · Scrum · Product backlog · Backlog refinement
- Daily Scrum · Sprint review · Sprint retrospective
References
- K. Schwaber & J. Sutherland, The Scrum Guide (2020), “Sprint Planning.” https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html