Sprint Planning
Sprint Planning is a collaborative ceremony where teams define Sprint Goals and select Product Backlog items for the upcoming Sprint. The Product Owner presents priorities whilst the Development Team assesses capacity and technical feasibility. Teams create Sprint Backlogs, breaking down selected items into tasks. Effective planning balances ambition with realism, ensuring clear understanding of work scope and success criteria.
Estimation methods
Common estimation methods include Planning Poker, T-shirt sizing, and relative sizing using story points or ideal days. These techniques help teams understand work complexity and plan Sprint capacity. Estimation focuses on relative effort rather than absolute time, enabling better planning decisions. Teams improve estimation accuracy through experience, regular calibration, and retrospective analysis of actual versus estimated effort.
Daily Scrum
The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute synchronisation meeting where Development Team members coordinate work and identify impediments. Participants typically discuss yesterday’s progress, today’s plans, and any obstacles. This ceremony promotes transparency, enables quick problem-solving, and maintains team alignment. While structured, Daily Scrums should adapt to team needs whilst maintaining focus on Sprint Goal achievement.
Value-based prioritization
Value-based prioritisation ensures teams work on highest-impact items first, maximising return on investment and customer satisfaction. This approach considers business value, customer feedback, market opportunities, risk mitigation, and strategic alignment. Product Owners balance immediate needs with long-term vision whilst considering technical dependencies and team capacity. Regular reprioritisation adapts to changing circumstances and new information.
Sprint Review
Sprint Reviews demonstrate completed work to stakeholders and gather feedback on the product increment. The Development Team presents working software whilst the Product Owner explains what was accomplished and what remains. Stakeholders provide input on future direction. This ceremony fosters collaboration, validates assumptions, and informs subsequent planning decisions through direct stakeholder engagement and product inspection.
Technical debt management
Technical debt represents shortcuts and compromises that speed immediate delivery but create future maintenance costs. Effective management involves identifying, measuring, and systematically addressing debt through refactoring, code quality improvements, and architectural enhancements. Teams balance new feature development with debt reduction, ensuring sustainable development pace and maintainable codebases whilst meeting business objectives.
Self-organization
Self-organisation empowers Development Teams to determine how to accomplish their work without external direction. Teams choose their working methods, task distribution, and problem-solving approaches whilst remaining accountable for results. This autonomy increases motivation, creativity, and efficiency. Successful self-organisation requires clear goals, appropriate skills, psychological safety, and organisational support. It develops gradually as teams mature and gain experience.
Cross-functionality
Cross-functional Development Teams possess all necessary skills to complete work without depending on external team members. This includes technical skills like programming, testing, design, and analysis, plus domain knowledge and soft skills. Cross-functionality reduces dependencies, increases flexibility, improves knowledge sharing, and enables faster delivery. Teams develop cross-functionality through learning, pairing, mentoring, and gradually expanding individual skill sets.
Size and structure
Development Teams should contain 3-9 members to maintain effective communication and agility. Smaller teams may lack necessary skills, whilst larger teams create communication overhead and coordination challenges. Teams remain stable throughout projects to build relationships and working effectiveness. Structure is flat without sub-teams or hierarchies. All members share collective responsibility for Sprint success and product quality.
Product Owner
The Product Owner maximises product value by managing the Product Backlog and representing stakeholder interests. Responsible for defining product vision, prioritising features, writing acceptance criteria, and making scope decisions. They collaborate closely with stakeholders and Development Teams whilst maintaining sole authority over backlog content. Success requires strong business acumen, communication skills, decision-making ability, and deep product knowledge.