Sprint Planning
Someone asked me question in which will be Sprint Planning provides the Development Team with a target and overarching direction for the Sprint sprint backlog or sprint goal?
A Sprint Goal should set the target and overarching direction of the Sprint. In combination with the Sprint Backlog, this represents the Sprint Plan, and is the expected output of a Sprint Planning session.
Sprint Planning is nothing but detailed planning of each User stories. We can plan the total targeted hours for Development and testing tasks. Even we can plan for the resource availability.
Sprint Goal provides directions to Dev team while sprint backlog and sprint planning are artifacts and event for supporting and achieving the goal.
Cheers
Sanjay
Coming to the Sprint planning the Product Owner should know which his highest priority items are. He then informs the Development team of his desire and this is what forms the initial basis for the Sprint goal.
During the 1st part of the Sprint Planning meeting the Development team picks up items which it thinks it can accomplish during the course of the upcoming Sprint. This is when the Sprint Backlog starts getting formulated and a clearer picture of the Sprint goal emerges. In the 2nd part of the Sprint planning meeting the team figures out to a certain extent how it will accomplish the items it has selected. So you might see tasks, tests, etc etc getting added to the Sprint backlog.
At the end of the Sprint planning meeting the Sprint goal is very clear and it does offer some flexibility to the team.
Bear in mind that the Sprint backlog can change over the course of the Sprint and the team can negotiate with the Product Owner.
Scrum embraces change so trying to predict everything during the Sprint Planning is foolish.