Sprint planning meetings are part and parcel of any Agile project. Nevertheless, some managers stuck with them. As a result, they are wasting time conducting useless meetups. Efisco team decided to help you change that, so here is our first article on what is Sprint planning meeting and why it’s right for a project.
What is Sprint meeting planning?
Sprint planning meetings are one of the ceremonial events in the Scrum paradigm. These meetings are used by many teams and became a part of organizational culture in most IT companies. These gatherings are held at the beginning and the end of milestones of a Sprint.
The ultimate goal of Sprint meetings is to answer all questions team members have. These questions, of course, related to the project.
Spring meeting roles
There are three roles that are typical to Sprint meetings. Each role has its own characteristics and goals. Here is a brief description of each role:
- Scrum Master
The primary duty of s Scrum Master is meeting planning. Scrum Master ensures that the team has a place for the meeting, take care of supplies and devices needed for a meeting, make sure that all team members are prepared for it and will be presented. Also, Scrum Master manages time for the meeting and makes sure that there is a complete alignment on the Sprint goal before a meeting is completed.
- Product Owner
Product Owner is in charge of preparing all the files and other things that are in the backlog before the meeting. They need to clarify everything present in the backlog. Also, the Product Owner prepares for all questions of the team connected with acceptance criteria or any use case. It’s a crucial role that requires detailed preparation. - Development Team
Of course, at each meeting, the team which made all happen is presented. Test engineers, developers, designers, and all other people who are part of the workforce delivering the product are part of the development team.
These people must be active during the meeting since they need to ask questions and get prepared for the upcoming Sprint. They need to have a clear understanding of what they will do next.
Why do we need Sprint planning meetings?
The primary goal of the Sprint planning meeting is to make sure what each team member will be doing during the next Sprint. It will make your staff more confident about what they do and what role they have in the project.
Here are other benefits of spring planning meetings:
- It promotes in-time planning
- It enables setting precise estimates for the task
- It allows discovering new tasks
- It forms a common understanding of a product
- It is used for task prioritization
- It allows assigning tasks
- It spares collaboration and team building
- It utilizes knowledge and skill improvement
- It lets to look at the project from different perspectives.
Benefits of Sprint Planning Meetings
Planning meetings help to define your goals.
You are a Scrum Master or project manager, and Sprint meetings are essential to you. These gatherings help your team to know what their roles are and what they need to deliver. Since you are the organizer of meetings, you need to define two major things.
The first one is a Sprint Goal – what are the goals of the upcoming Sprint and milestones for the team. Additionally, the Sprint goal is aimed to understand stakeholders what’s going on with the project.
The second one is Spring Backlog. It’s the list of all items present in the product backlog which were selected by a team member and committed to being worked on during the next Sprint. It must contain an estimation for each task and all necessary information for the tasks.
Sprint Meetings bring your team together
The planning meeting is a great way to bring your team together. It’s essential to treat your team members equally during all meetings. Additionally, before meeting at the planning stage, you are taking input from every team member individually, so everyone has an influence on what everyone does and makes employees more loyal to the project and the company.
Meetings are helping to measure the velocity
Scrum velocity is a measure of the amount of work any team can tackle during a single sprint. It’s a key metric in Scrum, and the Sprint planning meeting is aimed to help you to learn if your team can accomplish their goals.
Hopefully, our article helped you to understand what the Sprint planning meeting is. In our next publication, we will share some pro tips for conducting it in right away. Stay tuned with our updates!