Preparing for an Iteration Planning Meeting (IPM)

The day before IPM

In JIRA, go to Agile (for RA Current Iteration), go to Plan, and do Create Sprint. (The name should be "RA Iteration #" with the next sequential number.)

You want to create an iteration with about the size we expect to complete. (For now our best estimate is "how much did we get done in the last few iterations". Adjust up or down based on people who will be available, for holidays, etc. If we don't have stories estimated in the backlog, there isn't much you can do.)

Note that unfinished tickets from the current sprint will be moved into the upcoming iteration in a future step. Consider these when deciding how many additional stories you'll need in the sprint.

Go through all the overhanging stories (especially ones in the Backlog status), to see if there are any that you want to deprioritize. If so, remove them from the current sprint. (In any of the Agile views, right click, and say Remove From Sprint.)

From the Agile Plan view, bring some stories up from backlog to the upcoming iteration. These tickets should have at least enough detail that someone glancing at them understands what the story is about. (A story does not have to be fully-analyzed before pulling it into an iteration. But pulling an unanalyzed story into the iteration means that it should get analyzed during the iteration.)

You should skim through all the tickets in the backlog, and shift around priorities.

Shortly after IPM, or just before

In JIRA, from the Work view for the iteration that is just ending, click on the iteration name and choose Complete Sprint.

IPM

The iteration manager should explain the focus and priorities for the upcoming iteration.

The team goes through all stories for the iteration and ensures that:

1. Everyone understands approximately what each story is about.
2. Each story has a time estimate
3. Any blockers or dependencies between stories are known.
   1. stories should be ranked below any stories they depend on, in the Agile views.