Agile is a set of “Values and Principles”, it is more of a mindset than a methodology which some people seem to think it is. For a new Scrum Master starting their career, a checklist can help guide your thinking as you plan and execute sprints.

Think of this as a reminder of the steps you should take as you plan your sprints. Modify and adapt as necessary with the situations in your organization.

PREP

• A few days out from the actual sprint planning meeting:

  • Review product roadmap and vision with your product owner.

  • Ask team members to review product backlog on their downtime for the next upcoming sprint, update stories or tasks by leaving comments for PO.

  • Review improvement feedbacks from retrospectives.

  • Create a newsprint placeholder if needed

SPRINT PLANNING MEETING

• Ensure your entire team is present for the meeting.

• Start video call for remote team members.

• If needed, clean up the old board(s) with the team by checking the status of open tickets.

• Discuss spill-overs: Should these be continued or dropped? Move any spill-over tasks into the right buckets.

• Set the stage and Define the sprint goal.

• Create a “newsprint” 

• Discuss the goal and team’s capacity:

  • Is this realistic? If not, can the team lower the scope?

  • Worst case scenario the product owner needs to come up with a newsprint goal.

• Groom product backlog: Make sure every user story has a clear priority, is fully formed and up-to-date with context and estimates.

• Each user story should have acceptance criteria

• Ensure there is a full participant from every team member

• Choose sprint goal.

• Create a sprint backlog (To DO Column) of enough user stories.

• Discuss proposed sprint backlog: Let the team pick user stories based on the product owner’s priority and tasks that match the sprint goal and capacity.

• Discuss the definition of “done”.

• Break down each user story into individual tasks if needed:

• Make sure each task has as much information as possible.

• Ask whether the scope of work leaves time for unexpected issues.

• Ask if the scope of work leaves space to tackle bugs and technical debt.

• Get verbal confirmation from the team that they know what to do, a vote of confidence.

• Set the start and end dates for the sprint.

• If this is your first Sprint work with your team to set up due dates, locations and times for future scrum meetings.

Two Week Sprint Agenda