Sprint planning template

Use this template to kickstart your sprint planning process and establish a team's goals and the content included in a sprint. By taking the time to plan out what needs to be done, you can avoid getting bogged down with tasks that are not relevant to the sprint goal.

Sprint planning is an Agile ritual where the team plans the goals and contents of an upcoming sprint. During sprint planning, the team will review prioritized backlog items, estimate the capacity of the team for the upcoming sprint, and decide which items from the sprint backlog will be worked on. At the end of the session, the team will have a clear picture of what they will work on and what they will deliver next.

The sprint planning template helps teams:

• Understand how the team feels heading into the next sprint
• Review the product roadmap and backlog
• Prioritize tasks and build a project management plan
• Assign tasks to team members, align stakeholders, and track progress

How to use the sprint planning template

To use Mural’s sprint planning template, follow the steps outlined below with your team.

1. Check in with your team

The first step is to run an energy check-in with your team to see how they are feeling after the current sprint. Use the scale provided to add sticky notes to give an estimate of your energy level.

• Make sure you have enough sticky notes for the entire team to participate
• Offer the option for team members to share why they placed themselves where they did, but don't require it from anyone
• Spend a maximum of five minutes on this activity

2. Review the product roadmap

Next, take a look at the product roadmap with the project team to make sure everyone is aligned on the high-level goals and overall strategy informing your sprint. Make sure that any questions are addressed using sticky notes or in real-time to ensure that everyone has the appropriate context and understanding.

3. Define the goal(s) for this sprint

After you’ve established how this sprint fits into the context of the overall roadmap, it’s time to define the goals for the upcoming sprint. Have your development team brainstorm, working silently and adding one goal per sticky note. Once everyone has contributed their ideas, have everyone vote to determine the best option(s).

Note: Use Mural’s private mode feature to avoid groupthink even when working in real time together, and then determine the best option with an anonymous vote.

It may help to revisit the goal from the previous sprint as context to build off of. Was this goal accomplished? Why or why not?

4. Define the team capacity for the upcoming sprint

After you’ve set the goal for the sprint, define the sprint capacity based on feedback from the development lead with story points. This will directly inform how you assign stories within the sprint. Set a time limit for 5 minutes for your team to define the amount of work that will be possible for the new sprint.

Story points are used to estimate the relative complexity and effort required to complete a user story or task. They serve as a unit of measurement that helps teams gauge the size and difficulty of each item in the product backlog.

5. Plan the sprint

Move sticky notes with items from the backlog into the “to be considered” section as appropriate, and then run through the task and the estimated points — once you move the task into the sprint, updated the current load and total capacity to reflect your remaining capacity for subsequent items.

Establish timeframes, set due dates, and identify any known risks and workflow dependencies for each sprint action item during this backlog refinement exercise. Be sure to also make note of what deliverables are required for each task.

6. Energy check out

Once the sprint has been planned, run through an energy check-out exercise with your agile team to see how everyone is feeling now that you’re ready to move forward with your sprint.

7. Get ready for the sprint

Compile your action items and export them into Jira or other project management tools to save time. Be sure to clear up any misconceptions with team members before the sprint officially starts. Any issues experienced during the sprint can be raised in the following sprint retrospective meeting when the sprint is complete.

Tips for running a effective sprint planning sessions

To get the most out of your sprint planning meeting with Mural, you should:

• Use private mode to avoid groupthink as you brainstorm goals for the sprint, and anonymous voting to determine the best next steps democratically
• Tags for sticky notes can make it easy to assign specific tasks to team members for the upcoming sprint
• Keep your sprint mural as a record that you can refer to at then end of your sprint, so that you can run a better informed retrospective
• After the sprint is completed, be sure to conduct a sprint review exercise to evaluate processes, work delivered, and overall outcomes with the scrum team