Sprint planning and sprint backlog selection by priority and capacity
Key Takeaway
At sprint planning, the team commits to the highest-priority product backlog items that are work-ready and fit its capacity for the 2-week sprint. A top item without enough detail goes back to backlog refinement. A new request during the sprint goes to the product owner to order in the product backlog.
Sprint planning is the meeting before each sprint where a Scrum team picks work from the top of the product backlog and commits to what it can finish. The items it picks become the sprint backlog. Priority decides the order of the work. The team's capacity for a 2-week sprint decides how much of that work goes in. Backlog refinement before sprint planning makes the top items small and detailed enough for the team to commit to them.
The product backlog
The product backlog is the team's ordered list of all work that might be needed. The team treats the product backlog as the single source of truth for every change, update, and requirement it thinks is necessary.
Besides project work, the product backlog holds these kinds of work:
- Support or maintenance work
- Nonfunctional requirements
- Research
The product owner owns the product backlog. Prioritizing its items is the product owner's job. The team then decides which of the top items it can commit to in a sprint.
The product backlog is constantly refined as the team learns new information. Higher-priority items carry more detail, so they are work-ready when the team reaches them. Being in the product backlog does not mean an item gets done.