As part of our Web Wednesday Series, we recently held a workshop on how we use Agile to manage our projects. Mary Kathryn shared, in detail, our process for planning the work in sprints. Below find steps and questions that you can use to plan your first sprint.
Sprint Planning Meeting
Start with One Project:
- Create a list of all the tasks your team needs to get done to complete the project – this is your backlog
- Make the tasks as small as possible (ie: no task should take longer than the sprint)
Plan to plan:
- Start with a two-week sprint
- Set a one-hour meeting for Monday at the start of the sprint – invite everyone involved in the project
- Have your backlog ready to discuss
Discuss the work:
- Prioritize the work based on what needs to get done/what people want to work on over the next two weeks – pull these out of the backlog into the sprint
- Discuss these items in detail – what information do you need, what is the expected outcome (acceptance criteria), who will be responsible for the task
Start the Sprint:
- Review what was discussed and determine what the focus will be for the next two weeks – be realistic. Better to under-plan than over plan
- Make sure everyone is clear on what they need to do
- Get to work
Resources:
- We use JIRA but you can also use a spreadsheet to plan your sprint. Click here to make a copy of the Google doc we use for our newsletter planning. Note: you will need to be signed in to your Google account.
Daily Standup
Check-in every day. Put it on your calendar -15 minutes to start your day.
Review:
- What you did yesterday
- What you’re going to work on today
- Be honest about what is blocking you from getting the task done. What do you need to move forward? Ask for help!
The goals here are to:
- connect with the team
- identify blockers
- get the support you need to move forward.
Demos
At the end of the sprint show someone your work.
The goals here are:
- to connect with the end user/community/client
- to get feedback
- to feel good about what you’ve accomplished!
Retrospectives
- Ask: what did not go well?
- Ask: what went well?
- Create action items to bring into the next sprint
- Celebrate and show appreciation for the work done
The goals here are:
- to foster an environment where people feel heard, valued, and appreciated
- to be more awesome next sprint
Resources:
- Web Wednesday Agile presentation – recap, video, slides
- We use the Teams chat to ask the questions and discuss what went well and what could be improved
We created this template for a presentation on how we plan our Sprints in Web Services. Have a look at the recap and recording to learn more!