Sprint Planning

What this template is for

Sprint ceremonies are meetings pretending to be work. Planning, retrospective, backlog grooming — if you skip them the sprint still technically happens, but it happens badly. Three weeks of missed retros is three weeks of the same bugs reappearing. A skipped planning session is a sprint that starts without alignment. A neglected backlog is a Monday spent arguing about what to pick up.

This template pre-populates three recurring sprint ceremonies that keep the cadence honest. Two are scheduled (only actionable on their day), one is flexible. Together they are the minimal ritual for running weekly sprints. For biweekly teams, a one-line change in each task makes the pattern work.

The three seed tasks

Run sprint planning session (Monday, weekly, Only on deadline day). The hard start of each sprint. Importance 5 because a planning session that gets pushed to Tuesday loses the full first day of execution. startDateOffset: 0 means Klara will not surface this task before Monday — it stays in "Next" all weekend, out of your head during downtime. Monday morning it becomes actionable and claims "Do now." Effort is set to 3 (Hours) because a real planning session with the team usually runs 60-90 minutes plus prep.

Host sprint retrospective (Friday, weekly, Only on deadline day). The hard end of each sprint. Importance 4 because it is crucial but slightly less than planning — you can survive a skipped retro, but not a skipped plan. Same startDateOffset: 0 logic: Klara holds it out of "Now" until Friday itself. Effort 2 (Hours) reflects a 45-60 minute retro. If your team does deeper retros with action-item tracking, bump effort to 3.

Update product backlog (Wednesday, weekly, flexible). The midweek grooming task. Importance 3 because it is lower-stakes than the two ceremonies, and flexible (no startDateOffset) because grooming can happen any time you have a quiet hour. Klara lets urgency ramp normally: it rises into "Later" by Tuesday, "Do now" by late Wednesday if untouched. If you do it Monday during a quiet hour, Klara completes it and resets to next Wednesday.

How Klara handles these tasks

The two scheduled ceremonies stay invisible in "Now" until their day arrives. On any given Tuesday, planning (done Monday) has already rolled forward to next week, retrospective is still four days away in "Next," and backlog grooming is the midweek task competing for today and tomorrow. That layout prevents the anxiety of seeing all sprint overhead at once.

On Monday morning, planning surfaces to "Do now" cleanly — importance 5 with same-day deadline and hours of effort means it dominates. No other sprint ceremony competes. Team members see it, hold the session, mark it complete. Klara advances the deadline to next Monday.

By Wednesday, backlog grooming (importance 3) rises into "Later" and potentially "Do now." It has no startDateOffset, so anyone with a quiet hour earlier in the week can pull it forward and complete it early. Completing it Monday during dead time is fine; Klara treats that as a win and schedules next Wednesday.

Friday morning the retrospective surfaces. With importance 4 and an hour of effort, it claims "Do now" unless something higher-priority is in the project. Most teams schedule retros in the afternoon, giving the task a full morning of visibility as a reminder.

Adapting to biweekly sprints

Change each task's interval from 1 to 2. The pattern stays identical: Monday planning, Wednesday grooming, Friday retro — just every other week. Klara's cycleAnchor handles which weeks are "on" versus "off" automatically once the first instance completes.

For teams with mixed cadences (biweekly planning + weekly retro), adjust each task's interval independently. Retro stays at interval: 1, planning moves to interval: 2. Klara does not force consistency across the three tasks; they each recur on their own schedule.

Adapting to larger or smaller teams

Effort values assume a team of 3-8 people. For teams larger than 8, bump planning effort to 4 (Days) because an all-hands planning with that many voices often runs 3-4 hours. For solo or pair teams, drop planning to 2 (Hours) — shorter team, shorter ceremony. Retro scales the same way: 4 is appropriate for teams where every person speaks; 2 for smaller groups.

Why Monday + Friday are pinned but backlog is not

Scheduled ceremonies (startDateOffset: 0) match the reality of meetings. Sprint planning is not a task you can do early — it requires the team present on Monday morning. Retrospective is the same. Rescheduling either disrupts multiple people's calendars, so there is no reason to surface the task before its day.

Backlog grooming is different. It is a solo or async activity most weeks — a product owner or tech lead refining stories alone or with one reviewer. There is no calendar conflict to avoid, so letting Klara surface it whenever your project has room improves the odds of it actually happening. The flexibility is not a compromise; it reflects the different nature of the work.

Tips for customizing

• For teams using Scrum strictly, add a "Lead daily standup" task with weekdays: [1,2,3,4,5] and startDateOffset: 0. It shows up each weekday morning and disappears when completed.
• For Shape Up teams that run longer cycles, ignore the interval: 2 tip and instead change the frequency to match your cadence. A 6-week cycle might use a separate monthly planning task with monthDays: [1].
• Raise retrospective importance to 5 if your team has been skipping it. Importance bumps the task above competing work and creates the gentle pressure that makes missed retros less common.
• For distributed teams, pair this template with a collaborative: true flag so each team member sees the ceremony prompt on their own view. Klara handles per-user attendance naturally.