What is Sprint Planning?
In Scrum, every project is broken down into time blocks called Sprints. Sprints can vary in length but are usually 2-4 weeks long. A Sprint planning meeting is a periodic meeting that involves the entire team, including the Scrum Master, Scrum Product Manager, and Scrum Team. They meet to decide the scope of the current Sprint and which backlog items will be taken care of in the next Sprint. The Sprint planning Scrum event is a collective process that allows team members to say when work happens.
A successful Sprint planning session will give two critical strategic items:
The Sprint goal: This includes a brief written summary of the team’s plans to achieve in the next Sprint.
The Sprint backlog: The team has concurred to work on the list of stories and other product backlog items in the forthcoming Sprint.
5 Stages of Scrum Sprint
Sprints are the life of Scrum, where ideas are converted into value. Scrum processes tackle the specific activities and flow of a Scrum project. There are five stages of the Scrum Sprint planning as follows :
1. Initiate/ Pre-planning – This phase includes the processes related to the commencement of a project. It involves deciding on and setting the scope and objectives for the project, creating and distributing its charter, and taking other steps to guarantee success. Some of the processes include creating project vision, identifying Scrum Master and stakeholder(s), forming Scrum team, developing epic(s), and creating a prioritized product backlog.
2. Plan and Estimate -This phase involves planning and estimating processes, including creating user stories, approving, assessing, committing user stories, creating tasks, evaluating tasks, and creating a Sprint backlog.
3. Implement – This phase is about executing the tasks and activities to create a product. These activities include building the various outputs, conducting daily standup meetings, and grooming the product backlog.
4. Review and Retrospect/ Test – This stage of the project lifecycle is concerned with evaluating what has been accomplished so far, whether the team has worked to plan, and how it can do things better in the future.
5. Release – This stage highlights delivering the accepted deliverables to the customer and determining, documenting, and absorbing the lessons learned during the project.
A project has various phases. These include Preliminary Phase, Planning Phase, Design Phase, Implementation Phase, Testing Phase, Deployment Phase, and Support Phase.
Which are the 4 Scrum Events?
Scrum teams deliver products iteratively and progressively, ensuring a potentially valuable version of a working product is always available. Each increment of the development cycle produces a potentially helpful package that can be feedbacked on, which can then enhance all future versions until the desired end state is reached.
Primarily, Scrum consists of 4 formal events or phases :
1.Sprint Planning
2.Daily Scrum
3.Sprint Review
4.Sprint Retrospective
The Sprint, which is the primary activity in Scrum, lasts between 1 and 4 weeks.
1. Sprint Planning Meeting
This meeting initiates the Sprint by rendering the activities and work contained. The development teams make Sprint backlogs for the Sprint. The Product Owner and the Development Team then determine the team’s tasks within the subsequent Sprint. Team members take up various tasks based on the highest priority and who they feel can best serve them with the most excellent effectiveness. The Scrum Team may also invite other people to attend Sprint Planning to provide guidance.
2. Daily Scrum or Daily Standup
It is a roughly 15-minute, daily event that highlights the progress towards the Sprint goal. Each team member shares the latest progress on their work and identifies any potential challenges. This daily meeting aims to ensure all the team members are on the same page and their activities in sync.
Daily Scrums improve communications, identify barriers or challenges, promote quick decision-making, and thus eliminate the need for other meetings.
3. Sprint Review
The Sprint Review is conducted at the end of each Sprint. Its objective is to examine the result of the Sprint and discuss the goals achieved. This review meeting also gives the stakeholders a chance to provide feedback and suggestions about the product.
The Sprint Review is the second last event of the Sprint. It is timeboxed to a limit of four hours for a one-month Sprint. For shorter Sprints, the event is generally faster.
4. Sprint Retrospective
The Retrospective Meeting, also referred to as the RnR by Scrum teams, allows teams to assess their achievements at the end of a Sprint. It encourages open conversation about the successes and failures and identifies ways to strengthen activities during upcoming Sprints. The purpose of Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to enhance both quality and efficiency.
The Sprint Retrospective ends the Sprint. It is timeboxed to the utmost of three hours for a one-month Sprint.
Originally published here
