Sprint Planning

Run your next Sprint Planning meeting on Whiteboards

Lay out the work to be performed during the next Sprint, gain a shared understanding of Sprint goals, and work accordingly with your team’s capacity.

What is Sprint Planning?

Sprint Planning meeting is an event of the Scrum framework during which the team gathers together to discuss the product backlog items they should work on during the upcoming two-week Sprint and plan out the most optimized pace to complete the issues.

What is sprint planning

At the beginning of the Sprint, the team establishes their common Sprint goal and determines all the tasks they should focus on in the upcoming Sprint. Such an approach helps the team avoid setting unrealistic expectations but reach a group consensus on what’s important and ensures the whole team works harmoniously.

An effective Agile Sprint Planning session also presumes that the Product Owner will take into account the team’s capacity as well as the team’s velocity. This means that one team member can only focus on a fixed number of Sprint backlog items, bug fixes, or other important tasks.

Jira-powered Sprint Planning meeting

Issues

Links

Active zones

Add existing Jira issues

Authorize Jira, paste issue links to the board, and watch how Jira user stories get displayed. Access Jira issues, epics, or bugs from the sidebar and drag them directly to the whiteboard.

Create new Jira issues

Select one or multiple sticky notes on the whiteboard and convert them into Jira issues. Two clicks and your changes are reflected both on Whiteboards and your Jira instance.

Add existing Jira issues

Authorize Jira, paste issue links to the board, and watch how Jira user stories get displayed. Access Jira issues, epics, or bugs from the sidebar and drag them directly to the whiteboard.

Create new Jira issues

Select one or multiple sticky notes on the whiteboard and convert them into Jira issues. Two clicks and your changes are reflected both on Whiteboards and your Jira instance.

Show links between Jira issues

Display the links between multiple Jira issues on the whiteboard. Show which issues depend on each other, which result from which, which ones are blockers, etc.

Create new links between Jira issues

Keep working in one digital space and create new dependencies between Jira issues by connecting the cards visually.

Modify links of existing Jira issues

Edit the dependencies of your Jira issues by clicking on the link and selecting the appropriate dependency type.

Display epic links of your Jira issues

Represent Jira epics and child issues visually using the dependencies and connecting work items with links.

Show links between Jira issues

Display the links between multiple Jira issues on the whiteboard. Show which issues depend on each other, which result from which, which ones are blockers, etc.

Create new links between Jira issues

Keep working in one digital space and create new dependencies between Jira issues by connecting the cards visually.

Modify links of existing Jira issues

Edit the dependencies of your Jira issues by clicking on the link and selecting the appropriate dependency type.

Display epic links of your Jira issues

Represent Jira epics and child issues visually using the dependencies and connecting work items with links.

Import multiple Jira issues

Add an import zone anywhere to your whiteboard and pull Jira issues from your product backlog. Run your Sprint Planning meeting with actual work items on a digital board.

Update your Jira issues

Let Jira issues’ details change automatically by dropping them into appropriate update zones with set filters. Decide which actions occur when moving a backlog item to the zone: task in progress, completed task, changing assignee, or more.

Sync Jira issues on an issue table

Add a two-dimensional Jira issue table to your whiteboard. Set filters to the horizontal and vertical axis and drop Jira issues to the table. See how everything updates within seconds both on Whiteboards and Jira. (This feature is currently available only in the Whiteboards for Jira app.)

Import multiple Jira issues

Add an import zone anywhere to your whiteboard and pull Jira issues from your product backlog. Run your Sprint Planning meeting with actual work items on a digital board.

Update your Jira issues

Let Jira issues’ details change automatically by dropping them into appropriate update zones with set filters. Decide which actions occur when moving a backlog item to the zone: task in progress, completed task, changing assignee, or more.

Sync Jira issues on an issue table

Add a two-dimensional Jira issue table to your whiteboard. Set filters to the horizontal and vertical axis and drop Jira issues to the table. See how everything updates within seconds both on Whiteboards and Jira. (This feature is currently available only in the Whiteboards for Jira app.)

Benefits of Sprint Planning for your
entire Scrum team

Engage and involve all team members equally

Keep every team member (not only the Scrum Master or Product Owner) equally engaged in your Agile Sprint Planning sessions. Let every voice be heard thanks to the audio and video chat feature. Go one step further and add your video stream next to your cursor to get through your product backlog or discuss the team capacity while constantly seeing each others’ faces.

Take a deep dive into the world of Jira issues

Take advantage of the deep Jira integration and conduct your Sprint Planning meetings on whiteboards. Get access to your Jira backlog directly on your digital canvas and continue your work there. Pull Jira issues in, edit their details, estimate them, and assign them to team members. All in one space.

Map and visualize dependencies

Automatically visualize various dependencies between Jira issues. See how different colors represent which issue is a child to an epic, which bug blocks another task, or how your Jira issues relate to each other. Use issue links to represent the workflow and relations between different tasks.

Immediate data transfer between tools

Watch how the Sprint plan updates itself automatically thanks to update zones. Set appropriate filters, refresh your zone, and stay up to date (no matter whether you provide changes on Whiteboards or Jira).

Engage and involve all team members equally

Keep every team member (not only the Scrum Master or Product Owner) equally engaged in your Agile Sprint Planning sessions. Let every voice be heard thanks to the audio and video chat feature. Go one step further and add your video stream next to your cursor to get through your product backlog or discuss the team capacity while constantly seeing each others’ faces.

Take a deep dive into the world of Jira issues

Take advantage of the deep Jira integration and conduct your Sprint Planning meetings on whiteboards. Get access to your Jira backlog directly on your digital canvas and continue your work there. Pull Jira issues in, edit their details, estimate them, and assign them to team members. All in one space.

Map and visualize dependencies

Automatically visualize various dependencies between Jira issues. See how different colors represent which issue is a child to an epic, which bug blocks another task, or how your Jira issues relate to each other. Use issue links to represent the workflow and relations between different tasks.

Immediate data transfer between tools

Watch how the Sprint plan updates itself automatically thanks to update zones. Set appropriate filters, refresh your zone, and stay up to date (no matter whether you provide changes on Whiteboards or Jira).

Powerful Whiteboards features for Sprint Planning

Jira Integration

Add Jira user stories to your whiteboard, bulk edit them, and add dependencies between issues. All in one digital space without ever leaving the board.

GitHub Integration

Insert GitHub issues and pull-requests from many repositories to your whiteboard with a few clicks. Align various team projects in the same digital space.

Import and Update Zones

Bring Jira issues straight from your product backlog to your digital board and update their elements by dropping user stories to appropriate zones.

Real-Time Collaboration

Allow team members to collaborate on the same board, no matter where they are based. Conduct your next Sprint Planning session with a distributed and remote team.

Sticky Notes

Add, move, or edit sticky notes to your digital board to capture big-picture ideas and organize work items. Convert them into Jira issues when it makes sense.

Voting

Conduct voting sessions to distinguish the most important tasks. Alternatively, prepare sticky notes with the corresponding Fibonacci sequence to use them for estimation.

Sprint Planning session challenges and best practices

Challenge

Unclear Sprint goals or scope

Team members are unsure what the Sprint goal and scope are and what they should achieve in the new Sprint. This leads to confusion and inefficiency during the Sprint Planning process.

Overcommitment vs. undercommitment

It is challenging for the Scrum team to find the right balance between determining velocity and determining capacity for successful Sprint outcomes. Undercommitting results in a lack of productivity and wasted time, whereas overcommitting leads to missed deadlines and burnout.

Incomplete information

The development team doesn’t have complete information, such as feature requirements or user feedback, to follow the Sprint plan effectively.

Unrealistic timeframes

The team is unable to set a realistic assessment of how many backlog items they can work on during the current Sprint. After giving their estimates, the standard eight hours per day seem not to be enough to reach the deadlines.

Solution

To address unclear Sprint objectives, the Product Owner should collaborate with the entire Scrum team and define the goals and scope during the planning meeting. This will help team members stay on the same page throughout the Sprint and clearly understand what needs to be accomplished.

Sprint planning sessions

How Sprint Planning session can help you effectively manage your Sprint Backlog

Gather together with your team to discuss and plan the work to be completed during the upcoming Sprint. Follow the Sprint Planning meeting agenda, go through all the tasks from your Sprint Backlog, and deliver your best work with deadlines in mind.

Use the Sprint Planning meeting to prioritize and refine your product backlog items. Encourage all team members, Scrum Masters, and Product Owner to participate in the discussion, better understand the tasks’ complexity, and identify dependencies between them.

Establish clear Sprint goals and expectations to meet in the upcoming Sprint. By defining the criteria for success, the Sprint team can align on what they need to accomplish and work together towards the common objective.

Encourage collaboration and communication during Sprint Backlog estimation so that everyone can contribute their perspectives and expertise from the previous Sprint. Identify potential threats, issues, or blockers before they become more significant problems.

Templates

Best templates for your next Sprint Planning meeting

Curious about how to run an efficient and productive Sprint Planning meeting on Whiteboards.io? Host them with the help of ready-made templates! Check them out!

https://images.prismic.io/whiteboards/9dbdcd78-abc4-459b-8a9d-42c9ea78b73d_Screen+Shot+2023-03-03+at+10.48+1.jpg?auto=compress,format

Sprint Planning

Use one digital whiteboard to prioritize your Sprint Backlog, estimate work items, and conduct daily scrum meetings.

https://images.prismic.io/whiteboards/ebb2ec3e-65c0-4a8a-9f10-8cf76fbc8f25_Daily+Standup+Meeting+%281%29.jpg?auto=compress,format

Daily Standup Meeting

Run your daily team check-ins and easily track progress on tasks, dependencies, and blockers.

https://images.prismic.io/whiteboards/adba27d8-4d80-4559-afce-5cc18212292a_Screen+Shot+2023-03-30+at+15.23+1.png?auto=compress,format

Magic Estimation In Story Points

Estimate issues in your backlog and plan out your work quickly and effortlessly.

Whiteboards

Get started with
Sprint Planning on
Whiteboards today

Use cases

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