by What are sprints?
Sprints are cycles with a pre-defined time, between 1 to 4 weeks, whose focus is to deliver at the end of each cycle.
Through Sprints, which make up the Scrum framework, the team develops the best strategies for product development as a whole. The process starts with planning meetings to define objectives and distribute tasks. Within a sprint, some ceremonies are performed such as planning, daily, reviews, and retrospectives.
Why is the Sprint Planning Meeting important?
Planning is one of the fundamental ceremonies of Scrum, as it is during the same that the team commits to the objective that must be fulfilled by everyone during the Sprint.
To make the most of the team’s commitment, it is necessary to plan with everyone’s engagement and define what will enter the Sprint and what will compose the deliverable package for the customer at the end of it.
Before the meeting, the entire Team (Dev, AR, QA) should have understood, from a business point of view, what will be discussed in order to be implemented. The requirements analyst plays a key role at this point, as it clarifies developers’ doubts. Test analysts understand what they should test after development is complete, so that at the end of the sprint, the cycle closes with a functional package available to the customer.
During the planning, the tasks are distributed, each member performs his time estimate. And for teams that have members with the same skills, it is possible to foster discussions on how to solve a given problem. The easiest way, as long as it meets the business and security requirements, is always the most adhered to.
The scrum master is responsible for running the entire meeting. At that moment, aware of the team’s capacity, he will distribute the activities and consolidate the total time that each member will be able to dedicate to the activities.
The most important thing about planning is to consolidate the sprint’s goals. All team members must commit, as long as the goal is achievable.
How to conduct a meeting in the best possible way
Planning meetings must have a pre-defined time so that everyone can collaborate within the determined time.
Preparation
Every Sprint starts from a prioritized Backlog, which works as a kind of list of important items, from a business point of view, to be developed by the team. The Product Owner must present the objectives of that Sprint to facilitate the choice of items to be executed.
The next step is to evaluate each of the items according to the prioritized items and define which ones will go into this or the next Sprint. This step is part of planning and should align what will be done and how it will be done.
Assessment of the topics to be discussed
To define which themes will enter the Sprint, the team needs to take into account the time needed to develop each activity. You need to adopt ways to prioritize tasks and understand what is urgent now and what can be done later.
A tip is to assign a score to each item on the backlog list according to priority and difficulty. From there, define the Sprint tasks. With this, you prevent the team from being overloaded or from including items in the Sprint that will not be delivered due to lack of time.
Organization
To define the best time for sprint planning meetings, it is necessary to take into account when the sprint starts and ends. If the sprint has a defined time box of 15 days, and it always starts on Mondays, the ideal is for the planning to be on the first day of the sprint.
Sprint planning should be divided into two parts, typically four hours long each. The first is used to define the activities that will leave the Backlog and start executing. The second is done to discuss how this execution will be carried out, that is, what are the sub-tasks to be done to achieve the proposed goal.
At the end of each Sprint, the team does a Sprint Review, reviewing what was done in that Sprint to gather feedback on the product under development and prioritize new tasks. Anything that cannot be executed during this Sprint remains in the Backlog to be executed later.
How to do the Sprint in case of a home office?
The home office is a reality for many who work in the IT area. The scrum framework can easily be performed in the home office mode, as long as the team has cohesive communication and is aligned with the defined purpose. It is important to have an online tool so that you can view the stage of activities.
The daily are even more important at this moment because the team away requires even more care with communication. And in the case of the Scrum master, he needs to be aware of possible impediments to address as soon as possible. The principle is the same: gather the team at the agreed time to discuss what was done and plan the day’s activities.
For this, the team must hold a virtual meeting. Today, with platforms like Google Hangouts and Zoom, these meetings are made easier and allow all Scrum ceremonies to be done from home.
In addition, to monitor the tasks performed by employees who are working remotely, there are several systems for controlling productivity, such as Trello and redmine. Thus, the manager can follow the progress of the Sprint from anywhere, evaluating through Burnowm how the team’s productivity is on a daily basis.
Scrum is flexible and can be easily adapted to the home office so that all team members maintain constant communication.
