If you’re looking to move towards or improving upon an agile business model, one of the things you need to master is sprint planning.

In this article, we will first touch upon what a sprint is and why it’s important to have a sprint planning meeting. Then, we will dive in on how you can create an effective sprint planning meeting agenda that will save time for everyone and keep your team organised.

Finally, we will cap off with how to plan an effective sprint review meeting agenda to make your sprint review as productive as possible.

What is a Sprint?

A sprint is a short, intense period of time where teams across various departments in an organisation will collaborate to complete an iteration of work. The tasks that are completed during these periods are typically those that have been identified as high-priority or most urgent by the team members involved in the project.

By coming together and focusing on the sprint objective without interruption from other projects or assignments, your team can produce higher quality products for your customers. Sprints also help your team stay on track and work towards their goals by ensuring that they complete tasks on time.

Sprints are an integral part of the Scrum methodology, which is an agile framework. The proven success of the agile framework cannot be denied — just look at the successful agile companies that have resulted from this business approach: Barclays Bank, Lonely Planet, and Fitibit, just to name a few.

When Sprints Become Inefficient or Unproductive

However, not all sprints are as efficient or productive as they can be. Sometimes, it can even get a little crazy and everyone starts stressing out because no one really has a clear idea of what to do, or even what problem to solve.

Since sprints can often take up 1-2 weeks of your entire team’s time and focus, an unproductive sprint is not good for your bottom line. According to a study by Totaljobs, 90 minutes of daily unproductivity costs UK companies £4,467 per employee every year. Can you imagine the costs of an unproductive sprint that takes up your entire team’s time?

To make sure your next sprint is productive, you need to properly plan for your sprint. The best way to plan for a sprint is with a well-planned sprint planning meeting.

The Do’s and Don’ts of a Sprint Planning Meeting

The objective of a sprint planning meeting is to make your sprints effective, efficient, and productive. Here are some do’s and don’ts of sprint planning meetings to help you achieve a successful sprint.

DO’S

1. Set aside no more than 2 hours for each week of sprint.
2. If you’re planning a one-week sprint, your sprint meeting should be no more than 2 hours. For a one-month sprint, you’ll need to set aside up to 8 hours for a sprint planning meeting.
3. Invite a cross section of members to the meeting.
4. For examples, you could have a developers, a product manager, a project owner, an operations persons, etc. in your meeting. This gives you input from different perspectives, which is needed to plan an effective sprint.
5. Set clear goals for your sprint.
   Make sure the team understands the most urgent problem they need to solve and why. Then discuss on how the sprint will be broken down so your team can accomplish the goal.
6. Send out an agenda.
7. Offer whatever information you can in advance to meeting participants so they can prepare. A well-prepared agenda can help members prepare their discussion points for a more productive, shorter meeting.

DON’TS

1. Don’t invite too many people to the entire meeting.
2. If your meeting is too large that most people stay silent during the meeting, then you’re most likely wasting their time.
3. Don’t invite more one person from each department.
4. For example, there’s no point inviting the whole development team when just the lead developer is suffice. It’s better to send out a sprint planning meeting agenda to all team leaders before the sprint planning meeting. This allows team leaders to get the opinion of their team members as preparation for the sprint planning meeting.
5. Don’t send a poorly-planned agenda (or worse, not have an agenda at all!)
6. An agenda will help you make sure your meeting stays within the time limit without missing out on important discussion points. A well-planned agenda also helps meeting participants prepare for an effective meeting.

Save Time with a Sprint Meeting Agenda

From these do’s and dont’s, you can clearly see the importance of having a well-planned sprint meeting agenda. So, what must you have in a sprint meeting agenda to make it effective?

Using a sprint meeting agenda or agenda tool can help you save time and make sure your agenda doesn’t miss out anything important.

Let’s take a quick look at an example of sprint meeting agenda before diving in to understand each element of the it.

1. What are the sprint goals?
   The sprint goal serves as a high-level overview of what the team will focus on achieving during the sprint. It should be a short description of about 1-2 sentences that gets everyone on the same page.
   
   Before the meeting, participants should be encouraged to prepare a list of ideas they would like to propose for the sprint. This avoids wasting time trying to think of ideas during the meeting and can make your sprint planning meeting much shorter and more productive.
   
   
2. Product backlog discussions
   Next, list out all the product backlog related to the sprint goal that you chose. If your sprint goal is to launch a new app, some of the items on the product backlog could include fixing bugs and implementing feedback from customers.
   
   Once the product backlog has been listed, use this time to discuss the priority of deliverables during the sprint. Which ones must be done for this sprint, and which ones can be pushed to a later sprint?
   
   You should also discuss how to break down bigger items into separate, manageable steps that can fit into the scheduled sprint time. These tasks are also broken down into which can be further improved upon
   
   
3. Known issues and concerns
   Are there any known issues and concerns regarding the product backlog deliverables chosen for this sprint? How can they be addressed? Discuss any concerns the best possible way of solving the issues surrounding the product backlog.
   
   
4. Task breakdown
   Finally, create a clear plan of exactly what needs to be achieved on each day of the sprint. Discuss the feasibility of completing what you have chosen within your time frame. Refine your plan as necessary.
   
   
5. Key metrics
   Whether you are planning to release a new product or analyzing past performance, you should always identify which metrics to use for your measurements.
   
   
6. Closing discussion
   In the final section, leave the floor open for any final discussions to ensure the success of the sprint.

By following an agenda like this one, you can plan for an effective and productive sprint. After the sprint is executed, it’s time for a sprint review.

What is a Sprint Review Meeting?

The sprint review meeting is a collaborative meeting after a sprint has been completed. The objective of the sprint review is to align the team on what has been done, discuss what wasn’t achieved, and go through what still needs to be done.

A sprint review is also an opportunity for everyone to understand the work being done, share feedback, and create action items. Additionally, sprint reviews allow stakeholders to see what has been completed and set priorities for the next sprint.

Save Time with a Sprint Meeting Review Agenda

In the same way an agenda for sprint planning helps everyone save time, a sprint review meeting agenda can make your review meeting much smoother and less stressful.

Let’s take a quick look at an example of a sprint review meeting agenda and then get into the more details on each element of it.

1. Evaluate the sprint goals
   Begin the review by evaluating the sprint goals. Were they achieved? If so, were the results as expected or underwhelming? If they weren’t achieved, what was the reason?
   
   
2. Completed tasks
   Review the sprint task list and collate the tasks that were successfully completed.
   
   
3. Demos
   Here, you can review demos of the product or project from the development team.
   
   
4. Feedback
   Next, have an open discussion where all participants can provide feedback on whether the demos evaluated meet the users’ needs, create value, and improve functionality.
   
   
5. Key Metrics
   Review the key metrics or any other measurable outcome for each completed deliverable of the sprint.
   
   
6. Backlog
   Make a list of backlog, if any, that can be pushed back to the next sprint. This list will come in handy during your next sprint planning.

By following this agenda, you’ll ensure your sprint review is as effective and productive as possible.

Ready to Start Sprinting?

By being well prepared with a results-oriented agenda for your sprint planning meeting and sprint planning reviews,  you will have a better chance of executing powerful sprints that will provide the desired benefits.

Visit Agendalink to discover the easiest way to create and share interactive meeting agendas for your next sprint planning or sprint review. We are continuously improving our features and user experience to help your team have more productive meetings that don’t waste people’s time.

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