Every example of sprint planning works to organize prioritized tasks into weekly segments to meet project deadlines. The goal of a sprint planning sample is to visually highlight sprint tasks and roles in short-term intervals to help projects with multiple sprints flow smoothly from start to finish. With the help of sprint planning tools, you and your team can confidently arrive at an efficient plan of action, together. To learn more about how to do sprint planning, click here.

Start by gathering your team together around your FigJam sprint planning example template. As a project manager, make sure to check in with your team to evaluate how everyone is feeling prior to entering a new, upcoming sprint. Then, review the project roadmap (don’t forget to include any backlog items that still need to be completed, too). You’ll want to source input from as many minds as possible and create a sprint planning meeting agenda as you map out the next few weeks to be sure your sprint plan succeeds, so if you're wondering who attends sprint planning, the answer is “everyone.” To conclude, ensure all sprint tasks are assigned to a team member.

To prepare for a successful sprint, you’ll make a list of upcoming projects and collectively determine the sub-tasks for each. Then, you’ll plug these into your template with sprint planning as rows, sectioned off into weekly schedules. Moving onto the columns, you’ll want to confirm your team availability and assign members to each sub-task action item. Next, you’ll input the project status—ranging from not started to complete—and hierarchize by low, medium, or high priority.

When going through this exercise it also helps to remember which factor should not be considered during sprint planning. Do not include stories in your product backlog. Story points, or product issues, work for long-term planning and aren’t relevant to your sample sprint planning template.

You shouldn’t spend more than two hours per week on sprint planning. This ensures max efficiency and keeps workload manageable, whether you’re sprinting for two-week or four-week intervals.

To kick off the sprint planning process, ensure every team member understands the goal of the sprint. It's also helpful to involve the greater team while developing the sprint plan to ensure overall visibility and alignment.

If you're a project manager preparing for an upcoming sprint, consider simplifying tasks and estimating time needed to complete each action item beforehand. Reflect on a previous sprint review, adjust timelines, and get resources to support team capacity as needed. From there, you'll be prepared for a successful sprint ahead.