Planning
2 minute read
As part of the intelliHR development process we run a planning session at the start of each new sprint. Each team runs their own planning session along with product managers and interested stakeholders, for example. The goal of the planning session is to have a clear picture of what the team will be working on over the coming sprint and what the expected deliverables will be.
Running a planning session
Planning sessions are run in GitLab and the process is broken down into a stages
Availability check
The first stage of the planning is to check the availability of the team members. This will enable the teams to set realistic deliverables based on the capacity of the team during the sprint. If someone will be on leave, make sure the dates are specified, team notified, and calendar is blocked for the teams to plan accordingly.
Prioritise Epics
Teams review their Epics. Each of the teams have different ways of prioritising epics, but generally it should be prioritised in this order: Roadmap > High > Medium > Low. With the help of the Product Managers and stakeholders, the epics should be re-prioritised based on new feedback and strategy.
Review remaining work
Before picking up new Epics for the sprint, it’s important to review the work that has been done or in-progress from the last sprint. It could be done with a mini showcase to show the stakeholders or a verbal discussion on what was released and what is left to do. Remaining work will need to be re-estimated by giving a rough estimation of when it can be delivered.
Assign new work
Depending on how much capacity the teams have in the sprint, the Product Manager would assign new Epics for the teams. When new epics get assigned to the sprint, the delivery requirements should be discussed and specified. It’s important to make sure that the devs and product managers agree on the deliverables. A rough time estimate should be added to the epic.