Firstly, as a point of clarification, we are talking about Sprint Planning in Scrum. As a coach and trainer, I get exposed to a lot of teams and it surprises me how many of these teams still do Sprint Planning 1 (SP1) and Sprint Planning 2 (SP2).

Scrum is all about inspection and adaptation, so it should not come as a surprise that even the Scrum Guide gets updated as we go along based on what we learn. We have to go back to 2013 where the SP1 and SP2 were changed to just one session – Sprint Planning.

And why is that? Back in the day, SP1 was based on the WHAT and SP2 on the HOW, but what was learned was that often we would need to look into the HOW to explain the WHAT, and therefore it has made sense to merge the two sessions into one.

A different way to think about it is that we often work with developers that have been spoiled for years with a BA that just tells them what to develop, so when they join a session regarding the WHAT they will just be listening instead of asking relevant questions. This creates a space where the developers still get told what to do and are so far from collaboration and the agile mindset. By combining the HOW with the WHAT it helps the developer start the thinking process around how to develop. This, in turn, results in necessary questions being asked to increase collaboration and success rates. So, if you are in an environment where the struggle is real, try to create a space that allows the developers to work on the HOW in an interactive way.

So please start realizing that SP1 and SP2 are dead, and take the opportunity to train your developers to collaborate as a team.

Good luck and enjoy the journey.

See all changes made to the Scrum Guide through the years here.