Improving sprint planning

You should always look for ways (and suggestions from the team) to make meetings shorter and more efficient. Retrospectives (Chapter 5, The End? Improving Product and Process One Bite at a Time) provide an excellent forum for adapting sprint planning as well as anything else that may need improvement. Some ScrumMasters even run a quick retrospective in the sprint planning meeting itself to capture ideas for improvement while they are fresh in everyone's minds! I was hired as a coach at one client to work with a number of teams, one in particular that completed sprint planning in 15 minutes; management thought they were slacking because they planned so quickly! After spending a couple of sprints with them I determined that their planning was sufficient. They completed what they committed to and the product owner was happy with the work. What more can you ask for? As I used to say growing up in Texas, "Don't fix it if it ain't broke!".

Over time, find ways to make...