Sprint Planning is the ceremony that sets the trajectory of every sprint. Done well, the team leaves aligned and confident. Done poorly, ambiguity compounds into missed goals and frustrated stakeholders.
The Two Parts of Sprint Planning
The Scrum Guide defines sprint planning around two questions: What can be done this sprint? And how will the chosen work get done? Most teams conflate these and never fully address the second — which is why sprint plans often lack the granularity needed to identify blockers early.
Before Sprint Planning: SM and PO Preparation
- Ensure the top backlog is refined — stories estimated, acceptance criteria written, dependencies identified
- Calculate available team capacity (accounting for leave, ceremonies, and non-sprint work)
- Draft a candidate sprint goal for discussion
- Identify external dependencies that could block progress
Capacity Calculation: The Right Way
- Count available working days per team member
- Subtract ceremony time (Daily Scrums, reviews, retros, refinement)
- Apply focus factor (70–80% stable team; 60–65% teams with frequent interruptions)
- Convert resulting hours to story points at your historical throughput rate
Sprint Goal: The Most Under-Used Scrum Artefact
Formula: We will [achieve this outcome] by [delivering this capability], which we will know is done when [this acceptance condition].
Bad: "Complete user authentication stories." Good: "Users can register, log in, and reset their password end-to-end, enabling us to begin closed beta testing."
Anti-Patterns to Watch For
| Anti-Pattern | What It Signals | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No sprint goal set | Output over outcome focus | Require goal before sprint starts |
| Stories added during planning | Refinement not happening | Block unrefined items from planning |
| PO dictates the plan | SM not protecting the team | Capacity is team decision |
| Planning takes more than 4 hours | Stories too large or under-refined | Enforce definition of ready |
| No task breakdown in Part 2 | Hidden complexity | Require minimum task breakdown |
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