Sprint Planning: 3 Considerations for a Great Sprint

Have you found yourself drowning in the day-to-day tasks of your business? No time to work on the things that are really going to make your business grow without burning out? I hear you! Well, I have been working on a solution for you that will help you find time for the good stuff. The stuff that will make you money. That’s what you are in business for after all, to make money. Even if you love your business, you can’t sustain your business without making money. So how do you do it? In this post, I will show you how you can plan your Sprint, so that you can get all your daily work done AND still have time for the projects that you know your business needs to grow. That’s what Scrum is all about, sustainable productivity. Let’s dive in, shall we?

3 Considerations for a Great Sprint

During the Sprint Planning day in Scrum it is imperative to consider these three things.

1.     Daily, Weekly or Monthly Tasks

2.     Continuous Improvement

3.     Projects

Create a Kanban Board

To plan your sprint let’s start with a KanBan Board. If you recall a KanBan Board is a white board or Trello Board or whatever tool you use and has three columns.

1.     To Do

2.     Doing

3.     Done

That’s it! So let’s build out our To Do list by starting with your daily, weekly or monthly tasks.

Daily, Weekly or Monthly Tasks

If you are planning a 2-week Sprint only add the daily, weekly or monthly tasks that must be completed in the next two weeks.  Only add in what you do on a regular basis, not the one-time stuff. Recurring Tasks is what you are looking for.

Got it?

Perfect!

Continuous Improvement

Now, as you think about these recurring tasks that you must do in the next two weeks, think through the details a little bit. Is there any way you can build in more efficiencies so you can do these recurring tasks faster?

• Can you create a workflow to help you remember the steps and goals of the set of tasks you are doing?
• Can you create a repeatable process that can help you build in muscle memory so it is less effort to do these recurring tasks?
• Can you create a template that will make content, email, image creation faster?
• Can you create a Cheat Sheet so that you quit stumbling through the same task at frustrating levels by spending the time it takes to really learn how to do that thing and write it down for quick reference in the future?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, create a task (or Trello Card) in your To Do column for that thing. During your Sprint, as you do that task, you will also improve it by creating an efficiency like a workflow, repeatable, process, template and/or cheat sheet.

Be sure to make this a separate task and allow for extra time for it, even though you will do it at the same time you do the task you are trying to improve on. Once you have the efficiency created, each time you do that task in the future, improve upon the efficiencies you created so you can get MORE efficient. That is what Continuous Improvement is all about.

One last piece of continuous improvement that I hinted at above is learning. Being an online entrepreneur comes with a HUGE learning curve. So build in time to learn so you can get it right the first few iterations, rather than stumbling continuously.

Projects

Every Sprint, you should build in time for projects. Why? Because projects are how you expand your offerings. However, don’t be discouraged if you don’t have time for a project. If that is the case, then your first project is to build in efficiencies in your daily, weekly or monthly tasks. Since you have already planned for that in the previous step, all you need to do is create a card for your project called “Build Efficiencies in daily, weekly or monthly tasks.” Give yourself credit for doing it and celebrate when it is complete.

However, if you do have a project and you do have some time to work on it, build it right into your sprint. You may need to take several sprints to complete one project. That is perfectly OK and very common. The thing to keep in mind is that you want to have a good stopping point at the end of the Sprint so you can celebrate the little achievements. Get part 1 of your project done, or even get Part 1a and 1b done and put 1c and 1d on the backlog for the next sprint. The point is to track what you are doing so that you can easily pick up where you left off.

A good rule of thumb for a sprint is as follows

1.     daily, weekly or monthly tasks

2.     Continuous improvement – this included your learning curve

3.     Projects – make progress EVERY sprint on your projects

So there you are. You now have your sprint planned out. Be sure to add in estimates, so you know how long these things are going to take, then prioritize by the Scrum priorities.

Want to learn more about Scrum? Join the Take Charge of Your Biz Challenge and see how easy and lightweight Scrum is. Then implement this amazing framework for better implementation and productivity without all the overwhelm, stress and self-doubt.