How To Conduct Effective Sprint Planning

Was asked what my "Sprint planning secret" was. My secret is to do something effective instead of a fake-Agile waterfall-planning session complete with SWAG story-point estimates and tactical planning—something that makes no room for learning as we work. Instead, pick a single story. Keep asking "Can we make this smaller?" until the answer is no. (Most teams don't know what "small" actually is, so they'll have to learn how to do this.) Throw out any of those small stories that aren't worth doing (the best way to get faster is to not build stuff nobody wants), and put all but the most valuable of the stories back on the backlog. Build that most valuable thing. Given that a story represents a customer's problem, not a solution (another thing fake-Agile shops get wrong), sit down with your product people and, ideally, a representative customer and collect enough information to START (not finish) the work. One customer is enough (you've got to start somewhere)—release to more customers and adjust once you've got something concrete in your hands. Continuously collect additional information and feedback as you work with very small incremental releases to skin-in-the-game customers. Better yet, get rid of Sprints altogether. There's some value in doing some things on a regular cadence, but doing everything on the same cadence seems ineffective to me.

📌How do you plan a Sprint if there are external dependencies??? In today's post, I wanted to share a valuable tip 👏 We all know how crucial it is to deliver something Done every sprint. But what if your team is blocked by something outside of their control? 🔎 During Sprint Planning, I pay attention to the dependency rate within the team's tasks. If I notice a high dependency rate or hear about any dependencies from the team, I strongly recommend addressing them upfront. The first question to ask is ➡️ whether we can resolve the dependencies during this sprint while completing the scheduled work item. In my experience, about 99% of the time, the answer is no. So, we should plan for it right there and then. 👉 Instead of simply carrying the blocked work item into the sprint, we focus on what needs to be done to resolve the dependency. It's all about setting realistic expectations and empowering the team to handle their workload efficiently. Following Up 👇 For instance, we might need to coordinate with another team to unblock the work item. In this scenario, we clearly define a deadline for when we expect to receive the dependent item. This way, we ensure everyone is on the same page, and we can track progress. If a dependency cannot be resolved immediately within the first few days of the sprint, we prioritize other tasks and shift focus to the dependent work item once it gets unblocked. Usually that's next sprint. ⁉️ Have you encountered similar dependency challenges during Sprint Planning? How do you manage them? Let's learn and grow together! 🌱 #SprintPlanning #AgileDevelopment #ProjectManagement #DependencyManagement #ProductivityTips #Teamwork #Agile #Scrum