sprint-planning

Sprint Planning Skill

Transform raw backlog items into a structured, achievable sprint with clear goals, velocity-calibrated scope, and team-ready output.

Proposes Actions

Once the sprint is agreed, hand it to [action-runner](../action-runner/SKILL.md): it previews (dry-run, risk-rated), runs only what you approve via the connected action MCP, and records what was done back to the brain. Typical: create a ticket per committed backlog item and set the sprint milestone (🟡). This skill proposes; action-runner gates and runs — never silently.

What This Skill Produces

• Sprint Goal — single, outcome-focused sentence the whole team can rally around
• Sprint Backlog — prioritised list of user stories with story point estimates and acceptance criteria
• Capacity Plan — team availability breakdown accounting for holidays, meetings, and focus time
• Sprint Planning Agenda — structured 2-hour meeting agenda with timings
• Risk Flags — blockers or dependencies that could derail the sprint

Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):

• Sprint duration (1 or 2 weeks)
• Team size and velocity (average story points per sprint)
• Top 3–5 backlog items or epics to pull from
• Any known absences, holidays, or team events
• Previous sprint's incomplete items (carry-overs)

Sprint Goal Formula

Use this structure:

> "This sprint we will [deliver X outcome] so that [user/business benefit], measured by [success indicator]."

Never write sprint goals as task lists. Always outcome-first.

Story Point Calibration

| Complexity | Points | Description |

|---|---|---|

| Trivial | 1 | Clearly understood, no unknowns |

| Small | 2 | Straightforward, minor effort |

| Medium | 3 | Some complexity, clear path |

| Large | 5 | Complex, needs design or research |

| Very Large | 8 | High uncertainty, may need splitting |

| Epic | 13+ | Too large — must be split before sprint |

Flag any item estimated at 8+ and recommend splitting.

Capacity Formula

Available capacity = (Team size × Sprint days × Focus hours/day) × Availability factor
Focus hours/day: 6 (accounting for meetings, Slack, admin)
Availability factor: 0.7–0.85 depending on holidays/events
Story points to commit = Historical velocity × Availability factor

Programmatic Helper

This skill ships with a stdlib-only Python script that computes capacity instead of estimating it by hand. Use it whenever the team's numbers are known — it applies the availability and 80% commit-ratio rules consistently.

# Quick estimate from flags
python3 scripts/capacity_calculator.py --team 5 --days 10 --velocity 30 --availability 0.8 --carryover 5

# Detailed estimate from per-member availability (JSON via stdin or --input file.json)
echo '{"sprint_days":10,"historical_velocity":40,"carryover_points":8,
       "members":[{"name":"Ada","available_days":10},{"name":"Linus","available_days":7}]}' \
  | python3 scripts/capacity_calculator.py --input -

The script returns available focus hours, a velocity figure adjusted for real availability, the recommended commitment (capped at 80% of velocity), and the remaining capacity for new work after carry-overs. Run it first, then build the sprint backlog to fit the recommended number. Add --json to pipe the result into other tooling.

Output Format

Sprint [N] — [Start Date] to [End Date]

Sprint Goal:

> [Goal statement]

Team Capacity: [X] story points available (based on [Y] team members, [Z]% availability)

Sprint Backlog:

| Priority | Story | Points | Owner | Acceptance Criteria |

|---|---|---|---|---|

| 1 | [Story title] | [N] | [Team member] | [When X then Y] |

Carry-Overs from Previous Sprint:

• [Item] — Reason for carry-over: [brief explanation]

Risks & Dependencies:

• [Risk description] → Mitigation: [action]

Sprint Planning Agenda:

• 00:00–00:10 — Review sprint goal and team capacity
• 00:10–00:40 — Walk through backlog items, confirm estimates
• 00:40–01:20 — Assign stories, identify dependencies
• 01:20–01:50 — Review acceptance criteria per story
• 01:50–02:00 — Confirm sprint commitment and close

Guidelines

• Always challenge stories missing acceptance criteria — flag them explicitly
• Recommend the team commits to 80% of available capacity, not 100%
• If no velocity data is provided, assume 20–30 points for a 5-person team as a starting point
• Highlight any story with unclear ownership as a blocker

Scoring Rubric (0–40)

Score any output of this skill before handing it over; 32+ is ship-quality.

| Dimension | 0 | 5 | 10 |

|---|---|---|---|

| Sprint goal quality | Goal is a task list ("do stories 1–8") or missing entirely | Outcome-flavoured but vague — not scoreable pass/fail at sprint end | Single outcome sentence with user/business benefit and a success indicator, unambiguously scoreable at sprint end |

| Capacity honesty | Commitment assumes 100% of theoretical capacity; carry-overs ignored | Availability adjusted, but the 80% commit ratio is skipped or carry-over points not subtracted before pulling new work | Real availability (holidays, meetings, focus hours), carry-overs deducted first, and commitment capped at 80% of adjusted velocity |

| Story readiness | Stories lack acceptance criteria, estimates, or owners | Most stories estimated and owned, but 8+ pointers are unsplit or acceptance criteria are untestable | Every story has one owner, calibrated points, and testable acceptance criteria; every 8+ pointer is flagged for splitting |

| Risk & dependency surfacing | No risks or dependencies listed | Generic risks ("might slip") with no mitigations or owners | Specific blockers and cross-team dependencies, each with a concrete mitigation and a named owner |

Quality Checks

• [ ] Sprint goal is outcome-focused (not "implement X" — something like "users can do Y")
• [ ] Team capacity is calculated using actual availability, not theoretical 100%
• [ ] Every story has an acceptance criterion (flag any that don't)
• [ ] Stories estimated at 8+ points are flagged for splitting
• [ ] Carry-overs from last sprint are accounted for in capacity

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not write sprint goals as task lists — goals must be outcome-focused and scoreable pass/fail at sprint end
• [ ] Do not commit to 100% of available capacity — always recommend 80% to preserve slack for unplanned work
• [ ] Do not carry stories with no acceptance criteria into the sprint — flag them as blockers before committing
• [ ] Do not allow stories estimated at 8+ points into the sprint without splitting them first
• [ ] Do not ignore carry-over items when calculating capacity — they consume capacity and must be accounted for before new work is pulled in

Execution

For tool-using or computer-use agents that can reach the team's tracker (Jira, Linear, GitHub Projects). Runtimes without tool access ignore this section and deliver the document. See [SKILLSPEC.md §5](../../SKILLSPEC.md) for the rules this block follows.

Preconditions

• The sprint plan above has been produced and explicitly approved by a human — never build a sprint from an unreviewed draft.
• Tracker access is already authenticated in the agent's environment; the target board/project is named by the user.
• A dry-run listing of intended changes has been shown and confirmed.

Allowed actions

• Create the sprint/iteration container with the approved name and dates.
• Move the approved, already-existing backlog items into the sprint — only the items listed in the approved plan.
• Set story-point estimates on those items to the approved values.
• Post the sprint goal as the sprint description or a pinned comment.
• Nothing else: no creating new issues, no deleting or closing anything, no editing item descriptions, no touching other sprints.

Verification

• Re-read the sprint from the tracker: item count and total points equal the approved plan; every moved item is in the sprint; sprint dates match.
• Post the verification summary (items, points, dates) back to the user.

Rollback

• Undo = move the items back to the backlog and delete the empty sprint container.
• Stop and ask a human if: any item in the plan no longer exists or changed since approval, the tracker rejects an action, or the board contains an active sprint with overlapping dates.