Agile sprint planning is similar to creating a timeline-driven work roadmap, with tasks needed to be accomplished within a given timeframe. In this post, lets look at how engineering teams should use data to plan accurate sprints, and achieve perfect project deliveries.
This year, Agile will enter its 22nd year of inception. While devs have internalized the benefits agile brings on the table, most teams often struggle with the methodology. And it is team sprints that bear the brunt of failed agile transformations.
Agile sprint planning might seem a simple management task, however, if engineering teams are not careful, they can easily distort development velocity and lead to misplaced project priorities. In this post, let's talk about the basics of sprint planning, why sprint planning is a sacred business, and not just another team meeting, the common pitfalls, and best practices to conduct sprint planning with integrity.
What is Agile Sprint Planning?
Sprint planning is similar to creating a timeline-driven work roadmap. The process is a culmination of tasks needed to be accomplished within a given timeframe. Usually, sprints begin with devs reviewing their engineering backlog, prioritizing user stories and creating upcoming sprint tasks. The team then estimates durations (biweekly, weekly, fortnightly) for each task based on complexity and potential impediments. Once curated, the timelines and project tasks serve as a north-star for teams for next sprint plans.
Sprint helps teams stay organized by mapping out project expectations, and identifying what needs to be done, in given deadlines and assignees. Moreover, sprint speeds up the software development process by accurately delivering user-requested features in the shortest possible time.
Initially, teams used agile sprint planning to be on top of project delivery, or produce tangible, measurable results. However, sprints are much more than just checklists. They are a data-driven way to ensure a team is constantly making progress, or moving forward. That’s why planning is the most crucial phase of sprints- it helps to get priorities straight. Without the planning stage, conducting project delivery is like assembling electronics without reading the manual. It is definitely possible, but a lot more harder, and full of chaos.
Why Should Agile Teams Plan Sprints?
A driven sprint planning session sets the tone of success of a sprint. The key benefits of having an agile sprints are:
1. Improved Project Delivery
Teams conducting regular sprint planning deliver 250% better quality projects than teams who don't. Moreover, the ongoing iterations help teams to achieve their ‘continuous improvement’ flow, and even higher efficiency.
2. Team Cohesion
Sprint planning fosters better collaboration, and empowers teams to reduce their frictions through smoother hand-offs, and documented communication. By working together on backlog items, dividing tasks, and estimating timeframes as per a team’s pace, devs can gain a better understanding of each other's strengths and weaknesses- all leading to transparent, and focused teams, improved morale, and even improved developer experience.
3. Higher Productivity
Finally, sprint planning leads to higher productivity. Teams following the sprint rituals are 28% more productive than those who don't. Most sprint planning discussions take care of all planned, and unplanned tasks, define the backlog, and how to achieve the targets without compromising on quality.
With sessions so detailed, each IC knows their task items, specifically communicated product requirements along with a clear context of what’s next- all leading to higher efficiency, no alienation, and happy developers.
The ‘Not so Secret’ Ingredients of a Perfect Sprint Plan
A lot of data, team insights, and personalization goes into creating a sprint plan. Here are the common elements omnipresent across all team sprints:
1. Sprint goal:
Measurable, quantifiable, and achievable- the three terms that define a sprint goal. For example- your next goal could be about delivering ten product features, revamping the website, or bringing down incident rate by Y%.
2. Define sprint tasks:
List of tasks needed to be performed for achieving your sprint goal. It’s better to reverse engineer your work process, and create a timeline spanning daily, weekly, and mid-sprint.
3. Enrolling team members in sprint tasks:
The next step is the hardest- ensuring all members have a sustainable workload per sprint. Most sprints fail because either the team members are overburdened with the last sprint task, or don’t have enough productive time to code, or focus on key priorities. Hatica’s maker time metrics helps you to map available hours per dev so engineering managers can distribute sprint tasks by optimizing developer workload.