Sprint Planning

Turn a prioritized backlog and a known capacity into a realistic, goal-driven sprint commitment.

When to use

• Planning the next sprint/iteration.
• Sanity-checking whether a proposed commitment fits capacity.

Inputs to gather

• Sprint length and start/end dates.
• Team capacity: who's available, PTO/holidays, and any split focus. (See capacity-planning for deeper modeling.)
• Candidate backlog items with priority and rough sizing (see estimation-sizing).
• Carryover from the previous sprint.

Process

1. Define a single, crisp sprint goal — the outcome that makes this sprint a success. One sentence.
2. Compute available capacity (people × days − meetings/PTO − buffer). Reserve ~15–20% buffer for unknowns/support.
3. Pull items by priority that serve the goal until capacity is reached; stop there. Don't pad to 100%.
4. For each committed item, confirm it's ready (clear, sized, dependencies unblocked) — defer anything not ready.
5. Note risks/dependencies that could derail the sprint and who owns them.
6. State explicit stretch items separately from the commitment.

Output format

## Sprint {{n}} — {{dates}}
**Goal:** {{one sentence}}
**Capacity:** {{X person-days, after buffer}}

### Committed
| Item | Owner | Size | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |

### Stretch (only if commitment finishes early)
- {{item}}

### Risks / dependencies
- {{risk}} — owner {{name}}

Flag clearly if requested scope exceeds capacity, and recommend what to cut.