Sprint Facilitation

Purpose

Sprint ceremonies are the operational heartbeat of Phase 4 (Iterative Delivery). When facilitated well, they maintain team alignment, surface blockers early, demonstrate value to stakeholders, and create a continuous improvement loop. This skill provides structure, facilitation prompts, and health indicators for all four core sprint ceremonies plus AI-specific checkpoints.

When to Use

• A new sprint is starting and sprint planning needs facilitation
• Daily standup is running long or losing focus
• Sprint review needs structure for stakeholder demos
• Retrospective needs a format and facilitation guide
• Sprint health indicators need checking before the next sprint starts
• An AI/ML sprint needs experiment evaluation integrated into ceremonies

Instructions

Step 1: Identify the Sprint Event

Determine which ceremony needs facilitation:

• Sprint Planning: start of sprint; define goal, select backlog, commit
• Daily Standup: daily; sync on progress, blockers, plan
• Sprint Review: end of sprint; demo to stakeholders, collect feedback
• Retrospective: end of sprint; reflect on process, define improvements

Load the patterns from references/sprint-patterns.md for the specific ceremony.

Step 2: Sprint Planning Facilitation

Timebox: 2h for 2-week sprint; scale proportionally.

1. Sprint Goal setting (15 min): Product Owner proposes goal. Team challenges and refines until it is achievable and meaningful. Goal must be specific, measurable, and linked to the product roadmap.
2. Backlog selection (60 min): Pull from top of prioritized backlog. For each story: clarify acceptance criteria, estimate if not estimated, identify dependencies and risks.
3. Capacity check (15 min): Account for team availability (holidays, planned leave, meetings). Calculate available capacity in story points or hours. Do not over-commit.
4. Commitment (15 min): Team commits to sprint backlog. Sprint goal is written and visible. Risks and assumptions for the sprint are documented.
5. AI sprint specifics: If sprint contains AI experiments, define the experiment hypothesis, success criteria, and timebox before planning ends.

Step 3: Daily Standup Facilitation

Timebox: 15 minutes. Not a status meeting — it is a coordination meeting.

Structure each standup with three questions:

1. What did I complete since last standup?
2. What will I complete before next standup?
3. What is blocking me (or might block me)?

Facilitation rules:

• Start on time, always
• Blockers are noted; not solved during standup (take offline)
• If discussion exceeds 5 min, timebox and schedule a follow-up
• The facilitator ensures everyone speaks; no single person dominates

AI standup additions: If an AI experiment is running, add: "Is the experiment on track? Any early signals on the hypothesis?"

Step 4: Sprint Review Facilitation

Timebox: 1h for 2-week sprint.

1. Review sprint goal (5 min): Was the sprint goal achieved? If not, why?
2. Demo completed stories (40 min): For each completed story, demonstrate against acceptance criteria. Stakeholders validate acceptance. Only "done" stories are demoed.
3. Stakeholder feedback (10 min): Open discussion. Capture feedback in backlog items (new stories, changes to existing ones).
4. Metrics review (5 min): Velocity, commitment ratio, defect count for sprint. Flag any threshold breaches.

What not to include in sprint review: Stories that are not done. No "partial demos" of incomplete work.

Step 5: Retrospective Facilitation

See also: skills/retrospective/SKILL.md for full retrospective facilitation detail.

Timebox: 45–60 min for sprint retrospective.

Quick format (Start/Stop/Continue):

1. What should we START doing? (10 min): New practices, tools, habits that would improve the team
2. What should we STOP doing? (10 min): Things that are not adding value or are causing harm
3. What should we CONTINUE doing? (10 min): Things working well that must be preserved
4. Action items (15 min): From all items, select 1–3 actions. Each must have: specific action, owner, due date. Add to improvement backlog.

Step 6: Check Sprint Health Indicators

After each sprint, assess sprint health against indicators in references/sprint-patterns.md:

• Velocity trend: stable, improving, or degrading?
• Scope creep: were stories added mid-sprint without removing others?
• Blocked items: average time in "blocked" status
• Defect accumulation: are defects growing sprint over sprint?
• Carry-over rate: stories not completed and carried to next sprint (target: ≤ 10% of commitment)

Key Principles

1. Ceremonies serve the team, not the process — if a ceremony is not adding value, adapt it; do not abolish it without a replacement.
2. Sprint goals are commitments — not aspirations. Commit to what can be done; be honest about capacity.
3. Blockers raised in standup must be resolved the same day — unresolved blockers compound and destroy velocity.
4. Demos are for stakeholders — show working software against acceptance criteria; do not explain what was done in theory.
5. Retrospective actions must be timeboxed — an action without a deadline is a wish, not a plan.

Reference Materials

• references/sprint-patterns.md — Sprint ceremony patterns, facilitation tips, health indicators
• templates/phase-4/iteration-plan.md.template — Sprint planning output template
• templates/phase-4/review-outcomes.md.template — Sprint review output template

Quality Checks

• Sprint goal is written down and accessible to the whole team
• Sprint backlog is committed based on capacity, not pressure
• Every daily standup produces at least a blocker list (even if empty)
• Sprint review demos only completed stories
• Every retrospective produces 1–3 action items with owner and deadline
• Sprint health indicators reviewed at end of each sprint