sprint-planning

Skill: sprint-planning

Purpose: Run a sprint-planning session that produces a committable plan — a goal the increment serves, a commitment that fits real capacity, and items that are "done"-defined before work starts. Used by scrum-master.

When to use

• Starting a new sprint / iteration.
• Mid-sprint replanning after a material change.
• Diagnosing erratic velocity ("we never finish what we commit").
• Onboarding a team to a cadence for the first time.

The procedure

1. Set the sprint goal first. One sentence: the outcome this sprint delivers. A sprint is a goal, not a bucket of tickets — items earn their place by serving the goal.
2. Establish capacity, not aspiration. Start from demonstrated velocity (last 3 sprints' average) OR available person-days minus leave, ceremonies, and a support/interrupt buffer. Plan to that number.
3. Pull items that serve the goal, in priority order, until you reach capacity. Stop there. Everything else stays in the backlog — visibly, not silently dropped.
4. Every committed item gets, before commitment: a single named owner (never "the team"), acceptance criteria (the definition of done for this item), and an estimate. An item that can't be sized is too big — split it.
5. Make carry-over explicit. Unfinished items from the prior sprint are re-decided (re-commit / re-prioritize / drop), not auto-rolled.
6. Name the risks + dependencies that could block the goal, and who clears each (route depth to risk-and-raid-analyst).

Scrum vs Kanban (a work-shape call)

• Scrum — cadenced deliverables + a planning rhythm → sprint goal + ceremonies + velocity.
• Kanban — continuous, interrupt-driven, variable-priority work (support/ops) → WIP limits + flow metrics, no sprint. Don't impose sprints on a queue.

Anti-patterns this skill prevents

• A sprint backlog with no sprint goal.
• Committing beyond capacity every sprint (a planning defect, not a motivation problem).
• Items with no acceptance criteria, or owned by "the team."
• Mid-sprint scope injection absorbed silently (the #1 velocity-killer).
• Velocity weaponized as a cross-team productivity KPI (it's a planning aid).

Output

A sprint plan (see ../../templates/sprint-plan.md): goal, committed items (owner + acceptance + estimate), capacity basis, carry-over decisions, and named impediments. End with the scrum-master Output Contract block.