Scrum Meetings: Agenda, Questions & Templates

So, you are ready to begin holding Scrum meetings but don’t know how to start? This post is here to help. Outlining the Scrum meeting agenda, questions to ask, and providing templates for better understanding. Let’s dive in.

If you need more information on what the Scrum meetings are, check out this post first:

5 Scrum Ceremonies: Everything You Need to Know

Scrum Meetings – an Overview

According to the Scrum guide, there are 4 distinct Scrum meetings that happen during each Sprint.

Sprint Planning
Daily Scrum
Sprint Review
Sprint Retrospective

Each of these meetings has a specific purpose, time frame, and attendees in order to maximize value and reach the Product Goal. However, when it comes to running these meetings, many teams struggle in understanding how to begin, what questions to ask, and what agenda should be followed.

So, here is some guidance on how to run effective Scrum meetings with your team.

Sprint Planning

Agenda

The goal for the Sprint Planning is to pick out items from the Product Backlog to be completed during the Sprint. While there are some variations, these meetings usually follow an agenda like this:

First, the Product Owner presents how they are looking to improve the product value during this Sprint. This is usually based on the priority items in the Product Backlog.
Using this information, the whole Scrum Team then discusses and defines the Sprint Goal (this can be finalized at the end of the meeting).
As the Sprint Goal is becoming more clear, the Scrum Team pulls items that adhere to this goal from the Product Bakclog to the Sprint Backlog. To make sure there is not too much work for the scope of the Sprint, these items may be refined.
Lastly, the team divides the selected items into smaller tasks. Preferably, each lasting no larger than 1 workday. How the items are divided is entirelly up to the team and not part of the Product Owners responisibility.
As the work is planned, the team finalizes the Sprint Goal in the Sprint Backlog, and the meeting ends.

Questions to Ask

To help your team during this Scrum meeting, consider asking the following questions:

Why is this Sprint valuable?
What can be done during this Sprint?
How will this work get done?

Template

A clear and prioritized Product Backlog is essential for the Sprint Planning meeting. Using a task board like this one from Teamhood allows you to see all the items, categorize them and prioritize the most important ones. Making it easy for the Scrum Team to understand and plan.

Daily Scrum

Agenda

The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress towards the Sprint Goal within the team. There is no specific structure for this meeting, however, most of them carry a similar outline:

The team members meet in one room or online and open their Sprint board to see the progress.
Each team member gives a short update on what has been done and what is planned next.
The Sprint Backlog may be adjusted when needed.

It is important to keep in mind, that this is a status meeting and any problems that arise during the Daily Scrum are usually discussed outside of it with just the key team members. This allows to save time and discuss issues more effectively.

Questions to Ask

What was done yesterday?
What is planned for today?
What problems, if any, are there?

Template

During the Daily Scrum, it is a good idea to have your Scrum board open. Just like this example below, it allows you to quickly overview what is being done at the moment and what has already been finished.

Sprint Review

Agenda

The Sprint Review is held to present the completed work to the key stakeholders and check if it meets their requirements as well as the Product Goal. This Scrum meeting usually follows an agenda like this:

The team shows what has been done during the Sprint by presenting the product Increment to the Product Owner and the key stakeholders.
The key stakeholders then comment on whether this meets their expectations or needs adjustments.
If adjustments are required, the Product Owner registers them in the Product Backlog and later prioritizes these items for the next Sprint.

Questions to Ask

What was accomplished during this Sprint?
How does it add to the Product Goal?
Does it meet the Definition of Done?

Template

Depending on your project, this meeting may include a project demonstration or a presentation of what was achieved. All the issues and new requirements are registered in the Product Backlog, using the same template as in the Sprint Planning.

Sprint Retrospective

Agenda

The last Scrum meeting is held to review the process of the team during the Sprint. It gathers all the team members for a discussion on what can be improved next. This is done in the following way:

The Scrum team gathers and reflects on how this last Sprint went. Each team member is asked to identify things that went well and things that require improvement. This can be done in advance or by giving some time to think during the meeting.
The team discusses the issues and how they tried to solve them before.
The team agrees on actions that will help solve those issues in the future and commits to implement at least 1 of them in the next Sprint.

It is important to put at least one of the discussed actions into the next Sprint to actually improve your process.

Questions to Ask

What went well during the Sprint?
What needs improvement?
Did we do anything to solve the issues?
What will we do to improve on these issues in the future?

Template

During the Sprint retrospective meeting, you could use a task board to register all the information. The team members would add their answers to the board as tasks and move the decided-upon actions straight into the next Sprint’s Backlog. By using such a board, the Scrum Team has a visual representation on their discussion and a document to reflect back on in the future.