An Ultimate Guide to Sprint Planning in 2024

Ever feel like your Agile projects are one missed deadline away from falling apart? The culprit might be your sprint planning. It 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.

The good news? Data can be your secret weapon! 

Even though Agile has been around for over 20 years, sprint planning often trips teams up. We'll break down the core principles, explain why it's more than just another meeting, and show you common pitfalls to avoid.

This article will show you how to leverage data to build laser-focused sprint plans. Imagine – smoother project execution, happier clients, and a team firing on all cylinders.

Finally, we'll equip you with best practices for data-driven sprint planning – the kind done with integrity that gets projects done right.

So let’s dive in!

What is Sprint Planning?

Sprint planning is similar to drawing up a timeline-driven work roadmap. It's all about figuring out what needs to be done within a set timeframe. Typically, a sprint kicks off with developers going over their engineering backlog, prioritizing user stories, and defining tasks for the upcoming period. They then estimate how long each task will take (like every two weeks, weekly, or every other week) based on complexity and potential obstacles. Once this is set, these timelines and tasks become the team's guiding light for the next sprint.

Sprints keep teams organized by setting out project expectations and pinpointing what must be accomplished by certain deadlines and by whom. Additionally, sprints speed up software development by ensuring that user-requested features are delivered as quickly as possible.

Initially, teams adopted agile sprint planning to stay ahead of project deliveries or to produce concrete, measurable outcomes. However, sprints are more than just to-do lists. They're a data-driven method to ensure continuous progress and forward movement for a team. That's why the planning phase is critical—it helps clarify priorities. Without this planning stage, project delivery would be like assembling electronics without reading the manual: doable but much harder and prone to chaos.

How to Plan & Prepare for Sprint Planning?

Effective sprint planning meetings are vital for smooth and efficient Agile project execution. Here's a straightforward three-step approach to streamline your process and avoid common pitfalls:

Step 1: Have a Clear Leader at the Helm

In Agile methodologies, having clear leadership is key. Typically, a Product Owner or Scrum Master takes charge of the sprint planning process. They organize the product backlog (your team's to-do list) and ensure everyone sticks to the sprint timeline.

Beyond scheduling, they also manage team capacity to prevent overloading and burnout. If a team member's workload becomes too heavy, the leader collaborates to find solutions.

Step 2: Keep Your To-Do List (Backlog) in the Best Shape

Keep your product backlog organized like you would keep your desk tidy for optimal productivity. Regular backlog refinement is crucial. Since Agile sprints often last two weeks, schedule bi-weekly meetings with your product manager to refine the backlog.

The goal is to make sure each backlog item is development-ready. Unclear user stories or complex tasks should be addressed by the team leader. They work with the backlog item creator to clarify details and break down large tasks into manageable ones. This proactive approach streamlines both sprint retrospectives and planning sessions.

Step 3: Focus on What Matters Most: Functionality for the User

Customer satisfaction is central to Agile. Use user stories to achieve this—they describe desired functionality from the customer's perspective.

Focusing on user stories encourages creative solutions that genuinely benefit end users. This mindset shift moves away from merely completing tasks and toward building something great.

By following these steps, you can turn your sprint planning meetings from routine events into productive sessions that set your team up for success in each sprint cycle.

A lot of data, team insights, and personalization goes into creating a sprint plan. Here are the common elements omnipresent across all team sprints:

4 Phases of Sprint Planning in Agile

The agile methodology thrives on a well-defined sprint cycle, a repetitive process that breaks down complex projects into manageable chunks. Each sprint, typically lasting 1-4 weeks, acts as a mini-project with four key phases: planning, execution, review, and retrospective. Let's delve into each phase, understanding its significance for you as an engineering leader.

1. Sprint Planning: Setting the Course

This is where the roadmap for the sprint is charted. Here's where your leadership shines:

1. Collaboration is Key: Facilitate a discussion between the product owner and the development team. Ensure the team selects achievable user stories from the product backlog that align with the overall project goals.
2. Focus on Value: Guide the team to prioritize tasks that deliver the most value to the end users.
3. Promote Transparency: Establish clear sprint goals and acceptance criteria so everyone is on the same page.

By guiding a focused and collaborative planning session, you set the stage for a successful sprint.

2. Sprint Execution: Delivering on the Promise

This is where the development magic happens. Your role here is to:

1. Empower Your Team: Provide the resources and support the team needs to execute the plan.
2. Remove Roadblocks: Anticipate and address any hurdles that might impede progress.
3. Facilitate Communication: Encourage daily stand-up meetings (often called "daily scrums") for the team to synchronize and identify dependencies.

By creating an environment that fosters autonomy and open communication, you empower your team to deliver high-quality work within the sprint timeframe.

3. Sprint Review: Showcasing Achievements and Gathering Feedback

This is when the team demonstrates the completed functionalities and gathers valuable insights. Here's how you can contribute:

1. Champion Transparency: Lead a clear and concise presentation of the completed work.
2. Bridge the Gap: Facilitate constructive feedback from stakeholders, ensuring everyone understands the value delivered.
3. Celebrate Successes: Recognize the team's achievements and foster a culture of ownership.

By championing transparency and facilitating valuable feedback, you ensure the project stays aligned with stakeholder expectations and motivates the team.

4. Sprint Retrospective: Continuous Improvement

This is the learning and adaptation phase. Your role is to guide a productive discussion focused on:

1. Identifying Wins and Losses: Analyze what worked well during the sprint and what areas need improvement.
2. Promoting Openness: Encourage honest feedback from the team about processes, tools, and communication.
3. Actionable Insights: Formulate concrete steps to improve efficiency and effectiveness in future sprints.

By guiding a focused retrospective, you cultivate a culture of continuous learning and empower your team to refine their approach for the next sprint.

What is the Right Length for a Sprint?

Sprints stands for continuous evolution, and can be melted into a team’s working style, methodologies, and workflows. Usually, sprints vary somewhere from 10 days to 2 weeks. The numbers are not casted in stone though, and can be improvised as per tasks encountered, nature of the project, the team's experience, and the stakeholders' expectations. 

• Shorter sprints (1-2 weeks): These are suitable for complex projects, new teams, or situations requiring frequent updates.

• Longer sprints (2-4 weeks): These can work well for experienced teams with established processes and longer release cycles.

Here are some factors to consider when deciding on the length of a sprint:

If the project is complex or involves a high level of uncertainty, a shorter sprint length is the way to go. Shorter sprints help with timely feedback, so teams can adjust their plans well in advance. 

For new joiners, teams working together for the first time, a shorter sprint length allows ICs to learn and adjust their approach as they move ahead. For experienced teams who know each other’s nooks and crooks, longer sprints is a better way to drill down. 

The stakeholders involved, right from CTOs, and directors, to EMs, and product owners may have expectations about the frequency of product releases or updates. If they expect frequent updates, a shorter sprint length may be more appropriate. However, if the team is comfortable with longer release cycles, a longer sprint length might suit their needs better. 

Ultimately, the agile teams need to decide what makes sense for them- sprint should be long enough to allow the team to deliver a potentially shippable product increment, but short enough to have room for feedback and adjustment.

6 Best Practices for Sprint Planning

In Agile methodology, sprint planning meetings are the cornerstone for productive sprints. Following a well-structured approach is essential to ensure these meetings are executed flawlessly. Let's take a look at a step-by-step breakdown of key practices to run the perfect sprint planning meeting.

Here are some best practices to follow for your next sprint planning:

1. Set Realistic Goals and Deadlines 

Set realistic expectations for your team. If your team has consistently completed five backlog items per sprint, don't try to accomplish ten in the next sprint. Instead, focus on achievable goals that align with the overall project objectives. This will help your team feel motivated and productive.

Sprint doesn’t have to be all about chasing story points, or checking off a task from your list. Gauge developer velocity from previous sprint trends- this helps you to prepare for any unforeseen challenge. 

2. Don’t Boss Around Your Team. Enroll Them! 

Sprint planning is a team effort, and each stakeholder offers unique insights into how a product should be shaped. Value your team- they are your most precious resource.

Ensure all team members have a say in selecting the backlog items and creating the sprint plan. For starters- use a voting system or a prioritization matrix to ensure everyone's input is taken care of. This is a pragmatic way to get everyone on the board invested in the success of the sprint.

3. Set Priorities That Fit in Your End Goal

When developing a website, what should a team prioritize? A blog landing page, or user login columns, and CTAs. You got your answer, and that’s why prioritizing work becomes super important to your project’s success.

When selecting items from the backlog, prioritize based on value to the customer. Do not ignore sprint risks, including technical debt, and communication gas between teams.

4. Break Down Tasks

Breaking down tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces can help teams to reduce the menace of missing deadlines. If the task is to develop a website feature, break it down into designing the UI, coding the feature, and testing it separately.

5. Continuous Feedback= Continuous Improved, and Successful Sprints 

Regular progress reviews ensure the team is on track to meet its goals. Schedule frequent check-ins to review the sprint plan, assess progress, and identify any issues or obstacles that need to be addressed. Encourage async check-ins to know each IC’s workday without having to schedule constant update meetings. 

Moreover, surveying teams mid-sprint is a quick idea to gauge your team health and overview project delivery closely. You can either send out feedback forms, or talk to each IC separately if something is bothering their current workflow. Analyze their answers, coupled with team’s data so you know where teams are blocked, or if there are instances of unproductive work. 

💡Agile project management is all about flexibility, and sprint planning is no exception. Adapt and adjust your sprint plan to accommodate any roadmap change. For example, if the client requests a new feature mid-sprint, be prepared to adjust the sprint plan and reprioritize tasks accordingly.

6. Celebrate Your Sprint’s Success

Devs deal with imposter syndrome at least in the initial years of their career. Celebrating a sprint’s success and recognizing dev’s hard work can empower teams to come ahead with their honest feedback, boost morale, and reduce communication debt, so your teams are happier and more productive. These efforts, no matter how trivial they sound, can help you to break the ice between teammates, and even help devs to be their best version- a prerequisite to successful sprints. 

Organize team lunches or social events to celebrate no backlog, or ticking off 10/10 tasks out of your worklist.

8 Challenges in Sprint Planning

So, you've meticulously planned your next sprint, ready to make significant progress. But then, curveballs! Unexpected bugs appear, requirements shift, or technical glitches slow you down. Your carefully crafted sprint might need to adjust course.

Don't worry, it happens to the best of us. But being aware of these common roadblocks can help you steer clear of trouble and keep your sprint on track:

1. Unforeseen Work

Project contingencies can arise in the form of urgent bug fixes, evolving requirements, or infrastructure disruptions. These can derail planned work and necessitate adjustments to focus.

2. Prioritization Challenges

Overemphasis on resolving technical debt or bugs can detract from implementing user stories and features, impacting overall progress.

3. Team Well-being

Assigning excessive workloads or setting unrealistic expectations can lead to stress, fatigue, and decreased team motivation, ultimately hindering productivity and collaboration.

4. Unclear Sprint Goals

The absence of clearly defined Sprint Goals can lead to a lack of direction and hinder task prioritization. This can result in a scattered approach to work and potential failure to meet sprint objectives.

5. Unrealistic Scope

Attempting to integrate too many user stories or tasks into a single sprint can overwhelm the team and lead to incomplete work, missed deadlines, and compromised deliverable quality.

6. Communication Silos

Ineffective communication among team members, stakeholders, or departments can result in misunderstandings, missed requirements, and delays due to the need for clarification or rework.

7. Overly Granular Planning

Excessive time spent on detailed planning can lead to analysis paralysis, focusing excessively on minor details at the expense of high-level goals and sprint priorities.

8. Unidentified Dependencies

Failure to identify and address task dependencies during planning can lead to bottlenecks, delays, or blocking issues during the sprint, impacting overall progress and delivery timelines.

By being aware of these challenges, teams can proactively improve their Sprint Planning process and achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness.

How to Run a Sprint Planning Meeting?

In Agile methodology, effective sprint planning meetings are the cornerstone for productive sprints. Following a well-structured approach is essential to ensure these meetings are executed flawlessly. Let's take a look at a step-by-step breakdown of key practices to run the perfect sprint planning meeting.

1. Keep Sprint Planning Meetings Within a Time Frame:

It's crucial to keep sprint planning meetings within a specified timeframe. This discipline prevents meetings from running too long and losing focus. Allocate 2-3 hours for a meeting, though adjust based on team experience and project complexity. The goal is to maintain efficiency and respect everyone's time.

Sprint planning meetings should have a time limit, like setting a timer for a game. This is important for a few reasons:

• Avoiding Overlong Meetings: Just like how a game can become less fun if it goes on for too long, meetings can become less productive if they drag on. People might start talking about things that aren't important to the meeting's goal.

• Staying on Track: When you know there's only a certain amount of time, you're more likely to focus on what's really important. It's like having a deadline for a school project – it helps you get things done efficiently.

• Respecting Everyone's Time: People have other things to do, so finishing the meeting on time is important. It's like showing up to a friend's party and leaving when it's supposed to end – you're being considerate of their time.

• Adjusting as Needed: While a sprint planning meeting usually lasts 2-3 hours, you can make it shorter or longer based on your team's experience and the project's complexity. The goal is to find the right balance between completing the work and not making the meeting too tiring.

2. Smart Decision-Making with Estimations:

Effective sprint planning relies on accurate estimations. Overloading the team with tasks can lead to burnout and reduced quality. Agile estimation techniques, such as story points, help gauge capacity. This ensures that you set attainable goals, maintain motivation, and establish a consistent workflow.

Think of using estimates in sprint planning like planning a road trip. You wouldn't want to drive too far in a single day, as it can be tiring and you might miss out on enjoying the journey. Here's why using estimates is crucial:

• Preventing Burnout: Just as driving long hours can exhaust you, overloading your team with too many tasks can lead to burnout. When people are tired and overworked, the quality of their work often suffers.

• Maintaining Motivation: Imagine if you planned a road trip that was too ambitious, and you never had time to stop and see the interesting places along the way. It would make the journey less enjoyable, right? Similarly, setting realistic goals for your team keeps them motivated. They can see the finish line and feel a sense of accomplishment when they reach it.

• Ensuring Consistency: When you plan a road trip, you estimate how long it will take to reach each destination. Agile estimation techniques, like story points, work in a similar way. They help you understand how much work your team can handle during a sprint. This knowledge ensures a consistent workflow, preventing bottlenecks or rushed work.

3. Keeping Your Sprint on Track with Clear Goals and Outcomes:

Clarity is paramount for a successful sprint. Clearly define the goals and outcomes for the sprint, aligning them with past experiences and customer needs. Encourage open communication to address any uncertainties before starting work. Display the sprint goals prominently for constant reference.

Imagine you're embarking on a treasure hunt. To succeed, you need a clear map, right? Well, in sprint planning, clear goals and outcomes are your treasure map. Here's why they're so important:

• Navigating the Sprint: Think of your sprint as a journey. Without a map, you might wander aimlessly or even get lost. Similarly, setting clear goals in a sprint is like plotting your course. It provides a clear direction for your team, ensuring everyone knows what needs to be achieved.

• Connecting Past and Present: Just as a treasure map builds on knowledge of past explorations, your sprint goals should connect with what you've learned from previous sprints. This helps you avoid repeating mistakes and build on past successes.

• Addressing Uncertainties: In any adventure, unexpected obstacles can arise. Encouraging open communication within your team is like having a trusty guide. Team members should be at ease when it comes to inquiring and expressing any worries. This way, you can address uncertainties before they become major roadblocks.

• Constant Reference: Promising your sprint goals is like keeping that treasure map in hand throughout the journey. It serves as a reminder of your mission and keeps everyone on track.

4. Clarifying the 'Done' Criteria in Sprint Planning:

Defining "done" criteria is vital. Agreement on completion standards prevents misunderstandings and sets achievable goals. Ensure everyone understands the definition of "done" for each task, including criteria like code reviews, testing, and documentation.

Imagine you're baking cookies. You need a clear recipe and a timer to know when they're ready. Defining "done" criteria in sprint planning is like setting that timer. Here's why it's so important:

• Clear Expectations: Just as you don't want undercooked cookies, you don't want unfinished tasks in your sprint. Defining what "done" means sets clear expectations. It makes sure that everyone understands exactly what needs to be done for each task or project.

• Preventing Misunderstandings: Imagine if your recipe didn't specify when the cookies were ready – it could lead to confusion. Similarly, having a shared understanding of "done" prevents misunderstandings. It means everyone agrees on the standards for completion, reducing the chances of disagreements or confusion.

• Quality Assurance: When you bake cookies, they must be not just done but also delicious. In a sprint, "done" doesn't just mean finished; it means meeting quality standards. This might include criteria like code reviews, testing, and documentation. These ensure that the work is completed and meets the desired level of quality.

• Tracking Progress: Just as you keep an eye on the timer to track your cookies' progress, defining "done" helps you track your project's progress. You can see how close you are to completing each task and the overall sprint.

5. Ensure Sprint Goals are Aligned with Product Objectives:

Every sprint should contribute to overarching product objectives. While addressing specific issues, always align with the product's strategic goals. Choose backlog items that connect to the broader product strategy. This alignment ensures that each sprint is a purposeful step toward fulfilling customer needs and achieving product milestones.

Imagine each sprint as a jigsaw puzzle piece that completes the whole picture. Here's why alignment is crucial:

• Achieving the Bigger Picture: Each puzzle piece contributes to the overall image, so each sprint should contribute to the broader product objectives.

• Staying on Track: As you wouldn't use a puzzle piece from a different set, backlog items should align with the product's strategic goals. This prevents sprints from becoming disconnected efforts.

• Fulfilling Customer Needs: Aligning with product goals ensures that each sprint addresses customer needs and takes you closer to product milestones.

Is Sprint not going as planned? Learn how to fix sprint issues effectively and foster seamless team communication.

Why is Sprint Planning Important?

Listen, we all know the drill. Deadlines loom, priorities shift, and features creep in. But what if there was a way to mitigate that chaos and set your team up for win after win. Here’s where Sprint Planning steps in. 

Here's why sprint planning deserves a prime spot in your agile workflow:

1. Laser Focus and Shared Vision

A well-run sprint planning session gets everyone on the same page. We collaboratively define the sprint goal, ensuring everyone understands the "why" behind the tasks. This translates to focused execution and a clear direction for the team. No more ambiguity, no more chasing rabbits down feature holes.

2. Realistic Commitments and Predictable Delivery

By collaboratively pulling user stories from the backlog and breaking them down into actionable tasks, we can estimate workload with greater accuracy. This transparency fosters realistic commitments and empowers you to confidently forecast delivery dates to stakeholders. No more scrambling at the end of the sprint to meet unrealistic goals.

3. Early Risk Identification and Course Correction

Sprint planning isn't just about assigning tasks. It's a platform to identify potential roadblocks and dependencies before they derail progress. This proactive approach allows you to adjust the sprint scope or plan mitigation strategies, saving valuable time and resources down the line. Imagine catching a critical dependency issue before it throws your entire sprint off track!

4. Self-Organizing and Empowered Teams

Effective sprint planning fosters a sense of ownership and accountability within your team. By collaboratively creating the plan, engineers take a vested interest in its success. This self-organizing environment leads to increased motivation, improved problem-solving, and a culture of continuous improvement. It's about creating a team that thrives, not just survives.

5. 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.

6. 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. 

7. 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 and specifically communicates product requirements along with a clear context of what’s next- all leading to higher efficiency, no alienation, and happy developers.

Using Engineering Analytics For Your Upcoming Sprint Planning

An engineering analytics platform helps engineering teams to achieve their sprint benchmarks using data-driven insights. With all collated data and visibility in place, it becomes easier for teams to know why previous sprints failed, and future steps to evolve in their sprint game.

Hatica’s project delivery overview was created to resolve all sprint-related challenges for engineering managers and team leads. Hatica integrates with all your digital toolstack- from VCS, to Jira, GitLab, and CI/CD pipeline tools to collate data. Once the sprint tasks and story points are fed into the dashboard, Hatica helps teams visualize sprint over sprint trends, delivery velocity, and effort breakdown, from issues to story points. With strong visibility into developer tasks and sprint delivery, managers can minimize sprint risks and even stop sprint overflow way before the first red flag occurs.

The delivery dashboard is a natural progression from manual sprint velocity calculations or burndown charts. While the conventional planning tools help teams keep a track of ‘objectives’ and ‘goals’ of sprints, they often lack insights about how the tasks are achieved, or why some of them are still in the backlog. For example- a team that planned to complete 50 story points this sprint might be lagging by 30 points mid-sprint. A burndown chart can only help in visualizing the complete vs incomplete tasks, but cannot go into qualitative depth.

Now, teams can exactly know where they are failing, and what needs to be done- the week might be bug heavy, or devs encountered unplanned work not part of the original sprint plan. All these inferences can only be derived when teams have a 360 degree visibility into each sprint step. Knowing the nuances of sprints, it becomes natural for managers to improve planning accuracy per sprint, and deliver engineering work before time.

When coupled with the sprint performance dashboard, it becomes easier for teams to conduct data-driven sprint retrospectives. The dashboard presents data from the last four sprints so teams can get to the bottom of project impediments. From incorporating developmental metrics like cycle time, and code churn, to developer well-being, and maker time, the performance dashboard brings all moving parts of a project at one place- devs work trends, SDLC flow, project status, and percentage of unplanned work. And that’s how engineering teams achieve the ‘pace’ of continuous improvement in real time.

Once your current sprint falls back on track, the delivery dashboard also helps you to figure out the next obvious step: how to accelerate my project velocity. A healthy sprint planning goes a long way in determining the effectiveness of a team’s development process. Teams with tight-hold over agile sprint planning have well-ordered SDLCs and optimized developer workflows- an inevitable trait of any successful dev team.

Dos and Don'ts For a Trouble-free Sprint Meeting

Although, the list is fairly personalized, and all teams face different sprint challenges, here are the common, evergreen pitfalls across the spectrum: 

No Feedback, or Receiving Conflicting Feedback

Sprint retros are a team’s safe space for open feedback, or sometimes teammates hold back comments to avoid conflicts; however, on the contrary, these conversations might sometimes create misunderstandings amongst team members and threaten team cohesion. 

Ignoring Sprint Risks 

Sprint health can speak volumes, if teams are closely listening. Surveying teams mid-sprint is a quick idea to gauge your team health and overview project delivery closely. Sometimes, even the most trivial issues can harm your sprint velocity, if not resolved in the initial periods. If your team is only debugging in the first three days of current sprints and hasn’t yet started working on story points- it’s a risk most managers would not want to avoid. Solution? Keep a stock of your dev’s work items through the Hatica activity log, sprint over sprint, and that’s how you can get to the bottom of all throughput challenges. 

Unrealistic Deadlines

Deadlines are essential for keeping projects on track; however, sometimes sprint becomes all about chasing ‘definite’ story points over actually delivering value. It’s a common hitch across engineering teams, and mostly originates from the ‘we can figure it out’ approach of devs. The idea here is to gauge developer velocity beforehand, and then plan work items by keeping customer delivery expectations and team capacity on the same page.

What’s Next: Conducting Sprints the ‘Right’ Way 

Engineering teams should always remember that sprints are a sacred business. Once an agile sprint planning meeting has defined the scope of work, there should be no middle sprint shiftings. It takes time to get agile sprint planning right, but teams have to set benchmarks somewhere. 

Simplifying sprint planning goes a long way- most devs turn blind eyes to sprints because of an overly chaotic process, changes mid-sprint, and unplanned work that no one in the team has figured out. A healthy sprint is a win-win for everyone across the business cycle: right from customers, to CTO, CEOs, engineering managers, and individual contributors. 

Ensure perfect, and agile sprint planning with Hatica! Request a demo today →

FAQs

1. What are the phases of sprint planning?

The phases of Sprint planning involve three essential steps to ensure the success of Agile Sprints:

• Designing the Sprint: This phase involves setting up the plan for the Sprint, including meetings and activities.

• Estimating Sprint Velocity: In this phase, the team estimates how much work they can complete during the Sprint.

• Allocating Work to the Sprint: Team members assign tasks to themselves based on their abilities and the Sprint's goals.

2. How should scrum teams plan work to be performed within sprints?

Scrum teams plan work for sprints through a structured process. They create a task list (Product Backlog), choose tasks for the sprint, set a goal, estimate, commit to finishing tasks, and have daily updates. They adjust as needed and review work at the end, followed by improvements in a retrospective for future sprints.

3. When should a sprint goal be created?

A sprint goal should be created at the outset of each sprint during the Sprint Planning meeting, which is typically held at the beginning of the sprint. This practice ensures that from the very start, the Scrum team has a shared understanding of what they aim to achieve during the sprint.