Regarding startup products, you may need to prioritize your projects based on your company’s goals. For instance, you may prioritize updates that address retention if you have a high customer churn. Updates that drive growth may get top billing if you are struggling with customer acquisition. Or perhaps you have low LTV and need to put more emphasis on monetization. Whatever your startup’s priority is, you must allocate resources to the features and updates that help you reach your goal.
Planning Sprints for Startup Products
Companies use planning sprints to structure the challenging cycle of product improvement and updates.
“Sprint planning is an event in the Scrum framework where the team determines the product backlog items they will work on during that sprint and discusses their initial plan for completing those product backlog items.” — Agile Alliance
The sprint starts with a planning meeting where tasks and projects are agreed upon for completion. Align priorities and revisit your roadmap to ensure your team is focused on the right goals. Before getting started, address a few questions to plan your sprint:
- What is the overall goal? Is it just about a new feature, or are you aiming to mitigate risk?
- Are there tasks related to the sprint that are already complete?
- Identify vacations or holidays that will impact availability during the sprint — and use this information to determine your team’s capacity.
- What items will the team include on the sprint backlog based on the sprint goal and the team’s capacity? (A backlog is a list of tasks the Scrum team identifies to be completed during a sprint.)
The agile development model from which sprints emerged suggests daily standup meetings—aka “the daily scrum”—to monitor progress. In these meetings, each team member shares what they did the previous day, keeping the team up to speed. Everyone also shares what they plan to work on that day and raises flags about possible impediments to their progress.
A Sprint Burndown Chart visually tracks daily completed work versus the projected completion rate for the sprint. A product manager will lead the process, so it’s crucial to have the right person in place.
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