Template

Sprint planning template

One goal for the sprint, the work that serves it, and who takes what.

60 minutesFor Engineering and product teamsAgenda room
Change the agenda first

The agenda, with a time for each part

  1. What carried over from last sprint10 min
    • What did not get finished, and why?
    • Is it still worth doing?
  2. The goal for this sprint10 min
    • What is the one thing this sprint is for?
    • Who outside the team will notice when it is done?
  3. Choosing the work20 min
    • Does this ticket serve the goal?
    • What is the smallest version that would?
  4. Who takes what10 min
    • Who takes it, and who reviews it?
  5. Risks and things we depend on10 min
    • What are we waiting on from somebody else?
    • What do we drop first if we run short?

How the notes read afterwards

A made-up example, so you can see the shape. In a real call each line carries the words that were said and who said them.

Carried over. The refund flow, two days left. Still worth doing.

Goal. A customer can change their plan without writing to support.

Risks. We depend on the payments team for one endpoint. Noah asks today; if it slips, the downgrade path waits.

Running it well

Ways to change it

One-week sprintsThirty minutes. Skip the estimates and choose the three things that serve the goal.
A team without sprintsNo sprint goal. Use the time to put the next ten tickets in order and agree what is too big.
A new team's first sprintPlan half of what you think you can do. The first sprint is for finding out how fast you are.

When to skip it. When the goal and the work have not changed since last time. Carry on, and plan when something finishes.

Questions

What is the output of sprint planning?

One goal in a sentence, the list of work that serves it, and a name on each piece.

How much work should go into a sprint?

About what you finished last time, not what you hoped to finish. Leave room for the thing nobody has thought of yet.

What happens in the room

Everybody joins from the link, with no account. The agenda sits beside the call and each item fills in with what was said about it, under the name of the person who said it.

More templates

Incident postmortemWhat happened, why, and what changes so it does not happen again — without blaming anybody.Product roadmap reviewWhat is being built next and why, what moved since last time, and what was cut to make room.Design reviewOne design, shown early, with the questions the designer actually wants answered.Backlog refinementGo through what is coming next, make each item small and clear enough to start, and throw out what will never be done.User research interviewOne customer, in their own words: what they were trying to do, what they did, and where it went wrong.Lessons learned meetingAt the end of a project: what to do again, what never to do again, and where those lessons will be kept so the next project finds them.Go/no-go meetingBefore a launch: each owner says ready or not ready, and one person makes the call.Sprint reviewAt the end of a sprint: show what was finished, hear what the people it is for think, and change what comes next.

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