YTYK You think you know

Card 8 of 15 The five events ●●○ Working knowledge

Sprint Planning has three topics, in that order

Sprint Planning addresses three topics: Why (the Sprint Goal), What (the items selected for the Sprint) and How (the plan for delivering them). It is timeboxed to a maximum of eight hours for a one-month Sprint, shorter for shorter Sprints.

Why it is like this

Starting with Why is the whole design. A team that picks items first and then writes a Sprint Goal to describe them has produced a summary of a shopping list, which cannot later be used to renegotiate scope.

Not to be confused with

A session for filling the Sprint Backlog. The Sprint Goal is created in Sprint Planning and is the Guide's first topic, not a label applied afterwards — and the Developers, not the Product Owner, select how many items to take on.

In practice

"Validate the new checkout flow end to end with real payments" is a Sprint Goal. "Finish tickets 412, 418 and 421" is the What, mislabelled.

Source: The Scrum Guide, November 2020 (Schwaber & Sutherland) — Sprint Planning. Read on .

The Scrum Guide is published by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland under CC BY-SA 4.0. These cards are independent commentary written in our own words, not a derivative of the Guide's text. ytyk.org is not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by Scrum.org, Scrum Alliance or the Guide's authors.

Predict Check yourself

A team fills the Sprint Backlog, then writes "deliver the selected items" as its Sprint Goal. What have they lost?

  1. The ability to renegotiate scope mid-Sprint — the Goal no longer says anything the scope could be traded against.
  2. Nothing, provided the items are all delivered.
  3. The Sprint Review, which needs a separate goal.
  4. Only the Why topic, which is optional when the What is clear.
Show the answer

The ability to renegotiate scope mid-Sprint — the Goal no longer says anything the scope could be traded against.

The Guide allows scope to be renegotiated with the Product Owner as more is learned, without affecting the Sprint Goal. A goal that just names the scope makes that impossible.