What happens in Sprint Planning?

Question

Accepted Answer

Sprint Planning is the event that **kicks off the Sprint by deciding what can be delivered and how**. The whole Scrum Team participates, and it is time-boxed to a maximum of eight hours for a one-month Sprint (proportionally less for shorter ones).

## What it produces

Planning answers three questions and produces two outputs:

```text
WHY    The Product Owner proposes a Sprint Goal (the objective).
WHAT   The team selects Product Backlog items it believes it can finish.
HOW    The Developers plan enough of the work to start.

OUTPUTS:  a Sprint Goal  +  a Sprint Backlog
```

## Concrete example

The Product Owner proposes the goal "checkout works end to end." The team pulls in the cart, payment, and confirmation stories, breaks them into tasks, and confirms the goal is realistic given their capacity.

## Common pitfalls

- Over-committing by ignoring holidays, support duty, or past velocity.
- Skipping the Sprint Goal, leaving the Sprint as a random list of tickets.
- Planning every task in exhaustive detail upfront instead of just enough to begin.

## Why it matters

A shared, realistic plan at the start gives the team a clear objective and prevents mid-Sprint confusion about priorities.

The Sprint Goal created here is what keeps the team aligned when individual tasks shift during the Sprint.