Meeting canvases · Plan and estimate
Sprint planning meeting: goal, capacity and plan in one call
A sprint planning meeting opens each sprint: the team agrees a sprint goal that says why the sprint matters, picks the backlog items it can finish with the people actually available, and sketches how it will start. It usually takes an hour or two for a two-week sprint, and the Scrum Guide caps it at eight hours for a month.
Troopa fills in the sprint plan as you talk on Teams, Zoom or Google Meet: each item in Committed, Stretch or Not this sprint with its points and owner, and the totals for each column and each person added up as you go.
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Why sprint planning runs long and lands badly
- Every story read aloud turns into a fifteen-minute debate about requirements, because nobody refined the backlog first.
- There is no goal, just a list of unrelated tickets, so at the end of the sprint nobody can say what it achieved.
- The team commits to more than it can do, because nobody counted the holidays, the on-call rota or the assessment day.
- One item eats the meeting, then “one more small one” goes in at the end, and the commitment is soft.
- The plan lives in somebody’s head or in a ticket tool half the room cannot see during the call.
How to run sprint planning with Troopa
Step 1: Open the board
When the meeting is called sprint planning, Troopa offers the sprint plan before anyone speaks. Or say “Hi Troopa, open a sprint plan for sprint 14”.
Step 2: Agree the goal first
Say the goal before any item: on a plan opened without a name, it becomes the board’s title, and every item after it is weighed against the goal rather than the backlog’s order.
Step 3: Choose the work
Items go into Committed, Stretch or Not this sprint as the room decides, each with its points and the person taking it.
Step 4: Watch the totals
Each column adds up its points, and each person’s total counts their committed and stretch work, so an overloaded person shows before the sprint starts, not halfway through.
Step 5: Take it to your tracker
Present the plan to close the meeting, then download it as CSV or Excel for your tracker. It stays with the meeting’s notes for the review.
A worked example: a council web team’s sprint
A council’s web team plans a two-week sprint on Microsoft Teams. Dev, the delivery manager, runs the meeting with Troopa open; Amira is the product owner.
- Dev“Hi Troopa, open a sprint plan for sprint 14.”
- Amira“The goal: residents can report a missed bin collection online.”
- Dev“We each lose a day to the service assessment, so let’s keep it to about twenty points.”
- Joe“I’ll take the report form. That’s an eight. And the status page, a three.”
- Sana“Address lookup is mine, five, and the confirmation email, three.”
- Joe“The map view is a stretch. Five.”
- Amira“Bulk upload for the crews isn’t this sprint.”
Sprint planning outside the software team
Public sector service teams
A council or government service team plans the next sprint around a resident’s need, with an assessment day or a show and tell taking real days out of capacity. The goal is the sentence the team reads out at the next show and tell.
Fintech
A payments team plans around a regulator’s fixed date and the on-call rota, so capacity is what is left after both. The scope can flex during the sprint; the goal, “merchants can see refunds settle”, does not.
Agencies on retainer
A retainer team splits its capacity across clients and sets a goal for each client’s stream. The downloaded plan doubles as the client’s update, with what is committed and what is a stretch.
E-commerce
The sprints before peak season, with a code freeze as the hard edge: the goal is tied to checkout, and anything that will not be safe by the freeze goes into Not this sprint on purpose.
Healthcare operations
A hospital’s digital team plans a sprint to cut the reprinting of appointment letters, around a change freeze in the booking system. Administrative and IT work only, with no patient details on the board.
A sprint planning template and agenda
Use it as your sprint planning agenda, in this order: why, then what, then how. Refine the backlog before the meeting, so the meeting can choose rather than discover.
Sprint [number]: [start date] to [end date] Sprint goal: [one sentence: the outcome, and why it matters] Capacity Name | Days in sprint | Away or on call | Points this sprint [name] | [10] | [1] | [8] Team: [points], against a recent average of [points] Committed (serves the goal) - [item] · [points] · [who] Stretch (only once the committed work is done) - [item] · [points] · [who] Not this sprint - [item]: [why not] First days: [the first tasks, a day or less each] Open questions: [...] Confidence, fist of five: [...]
Questions that keep sprint planning short
- What is the goal, and why does it matter to the people who will use the result?
- Who is actually here this sprint, once holidays, on-call and fixed days are taken out?
- Which of the ready items serve the goal, and what is our capacity for them?
- If we only finish half of this, which half still meets the goal?
- Plan below full capacity: the work you discover always arrives.
- Keep status updates and long requirement debates out; they belong in the stand-up and in refinement.
Questions about sprint planning
How long should sprint planning take?
The Scrum Guide caps it at eight hours for a one-month sprint and says shorter sprints usually need less. Many teams with two-week sprints finish in one to two hours, especially when the backlog was refined before the meeting.The Scrum Guide (2020), by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland →Agile Alliance glossary, Sprint planning →
Who attends sprint planning?
The whole team: the product owner, who brings the ordered backlog and the reasons behind it, the developers, who choose the work and plan it, and whoever facilitates. Other people can be invited for advice on a particular item, but the meeting belongs to the team.The Scrum Guide (2020), by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland →GOV.UK Service Manual, Planning in agile →
What is a sprint goal, and how do you write one?
A sprint goal is the one objective for the sprint: a sentence that says what the sprint will achieve and why it is worth doing, such as “residents can report a missed bin collection online”. It gives the team room to change the exact work while keeping to the outcome.
Who decides what goes into the sprint?
The developers choose the items for the sprint backlog, in discussion with the product owner, who decides the order of the backlog and explains what matters most. The developers also decide how they will do the work.The Scrum Guide (2020), by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland →
How do you work out sprint capacity?
Count each person’s working days in the sprint, take out holidays, on-call and fixed commitments, and compare the result with the team’s velocity, what it has finished in recent sprints. Plan for a little less than the total, because unplanned work always arrives.
Can the sprint goal change during the sprint?
The goal should hold for the sprint. What can change is the work: when it turns out bigger or different than expected, the developers and the product owner agree a new scope that still meets the goal.The Scrum Guide (2020), by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland →
Sources
- The Scrum Guide (2020), by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland
- Agile Alliance glossary, Sprint planning
- GOV.UK Service Manual, Planning in agile
Read on 15 October 2026, by the people who make Troopa.
Try it in your next meeting
Install Troopa on your Mac, Windows PC or Ubuntu computer, join your call on Teams, Zoom or Google Meet as you always do, and ask: “Hi Troopa, open a sprint plan for sprint 14.”
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