Task: Iteration Planning Meeting |  |

The iteratino Planning Meeting is where the Team and Product owner determine which features and tasks will be attempted in the upcoming iteration
Disciplines: project management

Purpose

Planning

Relationships

Roles

Primary Performer:

- Developer
- Product Owner
- Solution Architect

Additional Performers:

Inputs

Mandatory:

- product backlog
- Release plan

Optional:

- None

Outputs

- iteration backlog

Main Description

The Iteration Planning Meeting is attended by the Product Owner, the entire Team, and any interested and appropriate management or customer representatives.
During the iteration planning meeting the product owner describes the highest priority features to the team. The team asks enough questions during this meeting so that they can go off after the meeting and determine which tasks they will move from the product backlog to the iteration backlog.
Collectively, the team and the product owner define a iteration goal, which is a short description of what the iteration will attempt to achieve. The success of the iteration will later be assessed during the iteration Review Meeting against the iteration goal, rather than against each specific item selected from the product backlog.
After the iteration planning meeting, the team meets separately to discuss what they heard and decide how much they can commit to during the coming iteration. In some cases there will be negotiation with the product owner but it will always be up to the team to determine how much they can commit to completing.

Key Considerations

The product owner doesn't have to describe every item being tracked on the product backlog. Depending on the size of the backlog and the speed of the team it may be sufficient to describe only the high priority items, saving the discussion of lower priority items for the next iteration planning meeting. Typically, the team will provide guidance when they start to get further into the backlog list than they know could be done in the next iteration.