Prepare Sprint Planning with a Capacity Checklist
Prepare Sprint Planning by checking availability, interruptions, dependencies, and completion standards before selecting work around a coherent Sprint Goal.
Start with availability, not a maximum target
Capacity planning asks what the team can reasonably support in the upcoming sprint. Note leave, part-time participation, support rotations, and other known commitments. Do not assume every working hour becomes delivery time; collaboration and uncertainty are part of the work. Historical performance can inform discussion, but it should not become a quota. The velocity guide explains why a forecasting measure should not be used as a productivity target.
Inspect the work before counting it
Check that proposed items have a clear purpose and enough information for the team to plan. Identify unresolved questions, external dependencies, and unusually large stories. An apparently small change may hide a difficult integration. Ask what evidence is needed before committing to an approach. Use story slicing to separate a narrow deliverable from a large bundle of requirements that cannot realistically be finished together.
Account for interruptions explicitly
Imagine a team that completed 30 points in a recent sprint but now has one person on leave and a scheduled production migration. Simply selecting 30 points again ignores changed conditions. Discuss the shape of the work, necessary skills, and interruption patterns rather than applying an automatic percentage discount. If urgent work is likely, agree how it will be assessed and which planned work may be reconsidered.
Select work around the Sprint Goal
Agree the outcome the sprint should advance, then select a feasible set of items that supports it. Check that the team can meet its Definition of Done, including integration and testing. A plan that fills every person with implementation tasks but leaves no room for review is not balanced. The Sprint Goal guide helps distinguish a coherent objective from a collection of unrelated tickets.
Source reference
Scrum framework reference: The Scrum Guide. The scenarios and checklists above are practical applications, not additional Scrum rules.
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