Sprint Planning That Doesn't Waste Everyone's Time
Tired of planning meetings that drag on forever and leave everyone confused? Plan your sprints visually, get everyone on the same page, and actually start the sprint knowing what you're doing.
Why Sprint Planning Usually Sucks
And how to make it not suck
Traditional Sprint Planning
- Someone shares their screen, others zone out
- Half the team talks, other half stays silent
- Discussions get buried in chat or lost completely
- Nobody remembers what we committed to by day 2
- Three hours later, still unclear what's in the sprint
- Remote folks feel like second-class citizens
Planning with Sticker Planner
- Everyone sees and interacts with the board
- All voices heard - add notes without interrupting
- Every comment and decision visible in context
- AI summary captures commitments and discussions
- Done in 60-90 minutes with clear outcomes
- Everyone's equally involved, wherever they are
What Makes It Better
The features that actually matter when you're planning a sprint
Visual board everyone can touch
Not just looking at someone's screen. Everyone can drag stories around, add comments, update estimates. Feels like you're all standing around the same whiteboard.
Everyone participates
Developers can update story points while the PM is talking. QA can flag testing concerns. Designers can add notes about dependencies. All happening simultaneously without chaos.
Keep discussions on track
Notes stay attached to the story they're about. No more "wait, which feature were we talking about?" moments. Sidebar conversations don't derail the whole meeting.
Document what you decided
Hit the AI summary button at the end. Get a clean writeup of sprint goals, what's in, what's out, concerns raised, and action items. Share with stakeholders who missed the meeting.
See capacity at a glance
Use colored stickers to mark story sizes. Glance at the "Sprint Committed" column and see if you're overloaded before you commit. No spreadsheet math needed.
Works however you work
Doing Scrum? SAFe? Kanban? Just winging it? The board adapts to your process. Customize columns, add stages, make it yours.
What About Jira, Linear, or Azure DevOps?
Fair question. Let's talk about it.
Jira is the 800-pound gorilla. Azure DevOps is for the enterprise crowd. Linear is the shiny new thing. They're all powerful project management systems. But that's the problem - they're built to manage projects, not to have conversations. Planning in Jira feels like filling out forms. Planning with us feels like talking with your team.
Built for collaboration, not tracking
Jira wants to know the epic, sprint, story points, assignee, priority, labels, and 12 other fields. We just want to know what you're building and who's working on it. Add detail later - right now, just plan.
Cost that doesn't scale with headcount
Jira Standard is $7.75/user. Azure DevOps is $6/user. Linear is $8/user. Your 10-person team? That's $900/year minimum. We give you planning for way less, with no per-seat nonsense.
No admin overhead
Setting up Jira projects means workflows, issue types, custom fields, permissions, screens, and schemes. Setting up our boards means picking a name and adding some columns. Five minutes vs. five hours.
Lightweight and focused
Jira wants to be your bug tracker, roadmap tool, knowledge base, and incident management system. We just want to help you plan sprints. One tool, one job, done well.
Look, if you're already invested in Jira or Azure DevOps for your full workflow - tracking, reporting, integrations - keep using it. But if you're a small team drowning in complexity, or if your planning meetings feel more like data entry, give us a try. Sometimes simpler is actually better.
How to Run a Planning Session
Assuming you want it done in under 2 hours
Prep work (do this before the meeting)
Product owner adds prioritized backlog items to the board. Just titles and basic descriptions - don't overthink it. Aim for 20-30 items to discuss. Too many and you'll never finish, too few and you'll run out of things to talk about.
Start with the goal (5 minutes)
Before diving into stories, agree on what success looks like for this sprint. Write it at the top of the board. Everything you discuss should tie back to this goal. If it doesn't, maybe it waits till next sprint.
Walk through the backlog (60 minutes)
Go item by item. PO explains it, team asks questions, add notes to capture discussions. Developers estimate effort, QA flags testing needs, designers call out dependencies. Drag stories to "Sprint Committed" as you agree on them.
Reality check (15 minutes)
Look at everything in the "Sprint Committed" column. Does it feel realistic? Any big risks? Dependencies on other teams? Now's the time to cut scope or break big stories into smaller pieces.
Document and share (10 minutes)
Generate the AI summary. Review it as a team - does it capture what you committed to? Any concerns missing? Good? Share it with stakeholders and the board link with anyone who needs to track progress.
Pro Tips from Teams Who Actually Use This
- Time-box discussions. If you're debating a story for 10 minutes, table it for later research.
- Use colors for different work types (features in orange, bugs in red, tech debt in blue)
- Have a "parking lot" column for ideas that come up but aren't sprint-ready
- Keep a "blocked" column for stories waiting on external dependencies
- Don't estimate during planning - do it in refinement sessions beforehand
- Break the meeting into two parts if your backlog is huge (select stories, then estimate)
- Keep stakeholders on mute but watching - they can add questions via comments
Beyond Sprint Planning
Other ways teams use this board
Backlog refinement
Between sprints, use it to groom the backlog. Break down epics, clarify requirements, add estimates. Come to planning with a refined backlog and cut your planning time in half.
Sprint tracking
Keep the same board open during the sprint. Move stories through In Progress → Review → Done. Everyone knows what's happening without asking in standup.
Release planning
Zoom out and plan multiple sprints. Columns become quarters or releases. Drag features around as priorities shift. Way easier than updating a roadmap document every week.
Bug triage
Dump all bugs on a board. Columns: New → Needs Investigation → Fix Now → Fix Later → Won't Fix. Team votes and discusses. Prioritize the bug backlog in 30 minutes instead of 3 hours of meetings.
Start With a Template
Pick a format that matches your workflow
Popular Planning Board Formats
- Backlog → To Do → In Progress → Review → Done - Classic Scrum board for tracking sprint work
- Backlog → Sprint Committed → Sprint Stretch → Out of Scope - Focus on what's definitely in vs. nice-to-have
- Ideas → Refined → Estimated → Ready → Committed - Progressive refinement leading to planning
- This Sprint → Next Sprint → Future → Parking Lot - Simple roadmap view
- New → Needs Info → Estimated → Approved → In Sprint - Workflow with approval gates
Plan Your Next Sprint in Half the Time
Try it free. If your next planning session doesn't suck less, we'll be genuinely surprised.