Sprint planning is one of the scrum management frameworks that speed up the workflow and amplifies the efficiency. Contrary to the conventional methods where a project is split and every member of the team works on a module, which together makes up an app; Sprint planning works with sprint-goals and every member works towards achieving the goal one after the other.
Parties Involved to Make Sprint Plan
The product owner briefs the sprint objective and the backlogs to be cleared to achieve the goal. The development team decides on the works to be done and the order of action through which the goal can be achieved. The Scrum Master facilitates the effectiveness of communication.
The sprint goal is ultimately the negotiation between the Product Owner and the Development Team on effort, value, and timeline.
It is impossible to plan a sprint without the Product Owner or the Development Team. The product owner establishes the sprint goal based on the value they seek, and the Development Team works on how to deliver that value.
Making the Sprint Plan
Creating a Sprint Plan needs discipline. The Product Owner has to be prepared to elaborate the value they seek combining the lessons learnt from the previous sprint plans. The development team should also stay transparent with the backlogs and its updates.
The Sprint Planning session should be constrained to limited hours along with the sprint session. For a two-week long sprint, the planning session could be constrained to 2 hours or less considering the additional topics needed to be addressed.
Making the Sprint Plan Work
Scrum is an empirical process, meaning not everything about the process can be planned with the information at the disposal. It is not strictly theory; most of the things are learned by practice and on the go.
Getting as much input as possible also puts you at an advantage of the added transparency and you can sprint accordingly.
Focusing on the result rather than the process towards the work is also important to make up for the limited information in complex projects.
Getting it done
An estimation on the effort and capacity is a rudimentary thing, but the estimation can very well be off: could come short or go long. Questions based on the estimation would lead to extended timelines and that can harm the project outcome if not sabotage the timing completely.
It is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of work in complex projects, but concentrate on the sprint goals and work towards achieving it and eventually, you will be concluding the project in no time.
A good sprint plan will have defined the outcome clearly and have it made transparent for every member of the team. And the backlogs will be sorted in the event of early completion to allow pick up the next backlog.
Bottom Line
Scrum is efficient only when the members involved completely understand the working. And it will be difficult, at the start, to move with sprints without a clear-cut plan seeing the end product. But, there is no denying that when done right, it clearly surpasses the conventional methods.
