In Scrum, Scrum Sprint Planning involves essential steps to ensure clarity and alignment within the Scrum Team. It begins with the Product Owner explaining the highest-priority items from the Product Backlog to the team. During this collaborative session, the team discusses and understands these items thoroughly. They then collectively decide on the Sprint Goal, which serves as the objective for the upcoming Sprint. Subsequently, the team breaks down the selected Product Backlog items into smaller tasks and estimates the effort required for each task. By the end of Sprint Planning, the Scrum Team has a well-defined Sprint Backlog containing the selected Product Backlog items, tasks, and their estimated effort, ready to begin work on achieving the Sprint Goal. This structured approach ensures that the team is aligned with the project objectives and equipped to deliver value incrementally during the Sprint..

Based on the Guide to Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK Guide), it is time-boxed to eight hours for a one-month Sprint and is divided into two parts – Objective Definition and Task Estimation.

1. Objective Definition—during the first half of the meeting, the Product Owner explains the highest priority User Stories or requirements in the Prioritized Product Backlog to the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team in collaboration with the Product Owner then defines the Sprint goal.

2. Task Estimation—during the second half of the meeting, the Scrum Team decides “how” to complete the selected Prioritized Product Backlog Items to fulfil the Sprint goal.

During Sprint Planning Meetings, the User Stories, which are approved, estimated, and committed are taken up for discussion. Each Scrum Team member does a quick estimation of tasks using tools such as planning poker. If the discussions start taking more time, it would mean that the User stories were not completely ready to be taken up for the sprint. Each Scrum Team member also uses Effort Estimated Task List to select the tasks they plan to work on in the Sprint, based on their skills and experience. The team reaches a consensus about the amount of work that needs to be put in this sprint. The Scrum Team also creates the Sprint Backlog and Sprint Burndown Chart using the User Stories and the Effort Estimated Task List during the Sprint Planning Meetings. The team can give a verbal commitment to complete the tasks planned for the sprint.

Try to avoid doing the following tasks during the meeting. They help you with preparation and should be prepared before the start of the meeting.

Refining: Refining helps ensure that there is a clarification of requirements and their User Stories. Its done in advance of the Sprint Planning Meeting so that the team has a well-analyzed and clearly defined set of stories that can be easily broken down into tasks and subsequently estimated.

Updates/Revisions: Updates can include revisions to the original User Story estimates based on task creation and complexity factors discussed during the Sprint Planning Meeting.

The bottom line is that if you follow these points, you will be able to do effective planning without spending a lot of time.