1. The Release Backlog has been refined by the team

The Release Backlog has a preliminary ranking and estimates have been provided for highly ranked work items.

1. Create a plan for the Sprint

Create an plan to be populated during the meeting (may be empty or have some preliminary information).

a. Create a new Sprint in the timeline (if not already present). See Creating timelines, iterations, and iteration types . Set start and end dates for the Sprint.

b. Create a Plan for the Sprint

See Creating plans.

c. Add a Sprint Goals page.   See Adding plan pages. It will be populated during the meeting.

2. Send out invitations

Send out meeting invitations.

See Meetings and Rational Team Concert .

1. Introduction

The Scrum Master facilitates the meeting.  He/she begins by reviewing the purpose of the Sprint Planning and ground rules.

2. Discuss the the Release Backlog

Discuss the ordered Release Backlog items to bring clarity.

Display the Ranked List view of the Release Backlog. 

• Click Plans > All Plans >[Release name]
• Set View As to Ranked List.

3. Discuss impediments and risks

The team discusses impediments and risks.

Display the team dashboard, Scrum Master tab. 

• Click Project Dashboards > All [Project name] Dashboards > [Team Name]

4. Agree on Sprint velocity

The Development Team forecasts the number of story points they can accomplish in the upcoming Sprint based on previous experience (Sprint velocity). 

Document agreed velocity on the Sprint Goal tab of the release plan.

5. Select stories for the Sprint 

The team discusses each story proposed for the release, starting with the highest ranked.  The team doesn't review epics, because they are typically too large to fit within a Sprint.

Specifically:

a. Do we agree that this story is correctly ranked?

If the work item is lowered in rank, then discussion of the story is deferred and the next highest ranked story is discussed.

b. Do we agree with the estimate on this story?

c. Is the story sufficiently understood?  Should this story be broken down further and some aspect of it be moved to a later Sprint?
Refactoring the stories, re-estimation and re-ranking may be required.

d. Should this story be included in the Sprint?

Stop allocating stories to the Sprint once the total allocated story points approximates the Sprint velocity.

Display the Ranked List view of the Release Backlog. 

• Click Plans > All Plans >[Release name]
• Set View As to Ranked List.

Hover over each work item to display key information without having to leave the ranked list.

To modify rank, click and drag the work item up or down (click at the far left of the work item). To modify rank, click and drag the work item up or down (click at the far left of the work item), or type a new number in the "rank" column. See Ranking work items.

The total points allocated to the Sprint are displayed on the Sprint plan.

• Click Plans > All Plans >[Sprint name]
• Click Plan Details > Progress

To see the stories, set View As to Work Breakdown, then click Unassigned. (This view will be used in subsequent steps to create and assign tasks).

To select stories for the Sprint:

• Check one (or more) stories using checkboxes at the left.
• Click Actions > Plan Items For > [Sprint name].

To remove stories

• Check one (or more) stories using checkboxes at the left.
• Click Actions > Plan Items For > [Release Name]

See Modifying work items in a plan.

When you add a child work item in Rational Team Concert a parent - child relationship is established between two work items, thus creating a hierarchical structure. This helps traceability and navigation. For a parent work item you can see its children work items as links and for a child work item, you can see its parent work item as a link.

8. Estimate tasks

Some teams prefer to assign owners for each task first, so they can estimate according to each owner’s skills. Other teams prefer to estimate all tasks together as a team. Regardless of what approach your team prefers, it is important to give each task an estimate, so that you can follow up on how much work has been completed and how much is remaining for the Sprint.

9. Development team members self-assign tasks

Each development team member looks at the set of unassigned stories and tasks on the Sprint plan and assigns tasks to themselves.

Self-assignment of tasks is central to self-organizing teams in Scrum. Some organizations might decide though to let the Scrum Master assign the work to the team.

Each member of the team has their own menu in the Work Breakdown view. to assign work, drag and drop the work item on the assignee's menu (click at the far left of the work item to start dragging).

Note how the stories and tasks are displayed in different colors. The Work Breakdown view always shows the parents and children in the hierarchy they have been defined. The stories are shown in grey color when they belong to a different user or are unassigned. Stories that have been assigned to the user are shown in blue color. (Assigning stories to users is optional - this tool mentor assumes stories are unassigned). 

10. Review team allocation

The Scrum Master looks at the allocation settings for himself and each of the team members and asks those whose allocation is not accurate make updates.

• Click Project Dashboards > All [Project name] Dashboards > [Team Name]
• In the Team Members widget, click on a name.
• Click Work Environment
• Repeat for each team member

To update your allocation:

• Sign in to Rational Team Concert
• In the upper right corner, click your name and select View My Profile and Licenses.
• In the left-side menu, click Work Environment.
• Find the row displaying the "Main Development" work allocation for this team, and click the Edit icon.

11. Review the Sprint load

When all tasks for all stories (assigned to the Sprint) have an estimate and the allocations of the team members are accurate, the Scrum Master reviews the Sprint load.

Total hours estimated for all tasks in the Sprint should be less than the total hours available.  Otherwise the team is overloaded.

For each team member, the total hours available should also be less than the total hours estimated for the work assigned to that team member.

• Click Plans > Recent Plans > [Sprint name]
• Click Plan Details. Click Load.

Mouse-over the load bar to see:

• Total hours available
• Total hours estimated
• Percent of items estimated

Review the loads for individual team members.

• Click the Progress bar beside the member's name until the Load is shown

12. Ongoing during the Sprint Planning

New ideas are captured as stories/epics.
An initial ranking is discussed as ideas are captured - highly ranked ideas can be immediately refined and added to the Sprint or Release Backlog, otherwise ideas are captured at a high level and left in the Product Backlog to be refined at a later time.

Impediments and risks are logged.

1. Standard meeting follow-up items

This includes creating work items from meeting notes, soliciting feedback from absent members, and resolving any work item(s) associated with the meeting.

2. Baseline the Sprint plan.

A snapshot captures the current state of a plan.  You can use the snapshot later to compare with the future states of the plan to identify trends. 

Taking a snapshot of a plan