Just wrapped up our first sprint planning session for Spice Sage, and I wanted to share some insights that might help other new Product Managers navigate this crucial part of the agile process! 🌶️

Let me start by explaining what sprint planning actually is – think of it as your roadmap for the next two weeks (or whatever sprint length you choose). It’s where your team comes together to figure out what you can realistically accomplish in that timeframe. I discovered that the key is having the right people in the room: developers who’ll build the features, UX designers who ensure it’s user-friendly, QA engineers who’ll test it, and of course, you as the Product Owner guiding the vision.

Here’s how our first session played out at Spice Sage: We started by reviewing our product backlog – basically our wishlist of features and improvements. The first big decision was choosing our sprint goal. For us, it was getting user authentication up and running. Why? Because without users being able to securely sign up and log in, we couldn’t do much else!

One thing I learned quickly: breaking down user stories is an art. Take our “New User Registration” story. Initially, we thought it was simple – “users should be able to sign up.” But when we dug deeper with the team, it blossomed into multiple tasks: implementing email verification through SendGrid, setting up social login options (Google, Facebook, Apple), creating the welcome email flow, and building the password requirements system.

Pro-tip for new PMs: Having detailed user personas makes these discussions so much more productive. We kept referring to our personas “Curious Carla” and “Adventurous Alex” during planning. When our team debated password requirements, asking “Would Carla abandon signup if we require too many special characters?” made the discussion much more concrete than abstract technical debates.

Another lesson learned: don’t try to cram too much into your first sprint. We were tempted to include our entire authentication system AND subscription management, but our more experienced team members helped us understand the importance of starting small and building momentum.

For meeting structure, we found this flow worked well:
– Sprint Goal Discussion (30 mins)
– Story Review & Questions (1 hour)
– Task Breakdown & Estimation (2 hours)
– Final Capacity Check (30 mins)

Remember, your first sprint planning might feel a bit chaotic – ours certainly did! But it gets smoother with each session as the team develops their rhythm. We’re now running two-week sprints with daily standups at 9:30 AM EST, and it’s amazing to see how much more efficient our planning sessions have become.

Would love to hear from other PMs about their first sprint planning experiences! What surprised you the most? Any rituals that worked particularly well for your team?

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