Christopher McSpiritt

My company recently completed our most recent iteration planning session. It was an eye-opening experience for most of our team had not been part of an iteration planning session before. Below is a checklist that teams can use to help ensure that their iteration planning meeting is successful.

Before the session:

• Product backlog has been finalized
  • All backlog items have been assigned a stack rank by the Product Owner
  • All backlog items have been assigned their story points by the Project Team
• Project Team has been prepped
  • Team has been trained on basic Scrum processes/roles
• Situation has been analyzed
  • Outside factors have been reviewed and impact on team has been documented
  • Project team member capacity has been evaluated/documented
    • # of hours per day for each worker
    • # of days each worker will be available during the iteration
• Meeting logistics have been finalized
  • Meeting location has been booked for the entire day
  • Project team has been made available for the entire day
  • Lunch has been ordered

During the session:

• Session was initiated
  • Welcome team to the meeting
  • Review iteration planning process
• Backlog is triaged
  • Tasks are defined for each user story
    • Task duration estimates are documented
    • Task owners are documented
• Agreement is reached
  • Project team and product owner agree on the plan of attack
• Meeting is evaluated
  • What went well and what could be improved

After the session:

• Iteration tracking system is set up
  • Allow tracking of all iteration tasks
• Daily scrum meetings are set up

Following the steps above should help make your iteration planning meeting your most successful yet. Do you have any other tasks/items that you feel contribute to the success of your iteration planning meeting?