Sprint Plan
Plan the next sprint with realistic capacity, a committed story list, dependency order, and risk mitigations before your agent or team starts implementation.
Overview
Sprint Plan is an agent skill most often used in Build (also Ship, Operate) that estimates sprint capacity, selects ready stories, maps dependencies, and documents risks for a committed iteration scope.
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills --skill sprint-planWhat is this skill?
- Four-step workflow: estimate capacity, select stories, map dependencies, identify risks and mitigations
- Capacity math uses last-three-sprint velocity plus a 15–20% buffer for bugs, tech debt, and surprises
- Definition of Ready gate: clear acceptance criteria, estimates, and no blockers before stories enter the sprint
- Dependency mapping covers internal story order, external owners, and critical-path sequencing
- Reads user-supplied backlogs, velocity sheets, rosters, and prior sprint reports when provided
- Four-step sprint planning workflow (capacity, selection, dependencies, risks)
- 15–20% capacity buffer reserved for unexpected work
- Velocity anchored on the last 3 sprints
Adoption & trust: 1k installs on skills.sh; 12.3k GitHub stars; 3/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You have a prioritized backlog but no defensible sprint commitment that balances velocity, availability, dependencies, and surprise work.
Who is it for?
Indie and solo builders running Scrum-style sprints who already maintain a backlog and want agent-assisted capacity and dependency sanity checks before coding.
Skip if: Teams without any estimates or acceptance criteria who need backlog refinement first, or Kanban-only flows that do not use time-boxed sprint commitments.
When should I use this skill?
Preparing for sprint planning, estimating team capacity, selecting stories, or balancing sprint scope against velocity.
What do I get? / Deliverables
You get a capacity-backed sprint selection with sequenced dependencies, flagged external blockers, and named risks—ready to feed implementation tasks or a writing-plans style breakdown.
- Sprint capacity estimate in story points or ideal hours
- Committed story list with Definition of Ready flags
- Dependency map with external owners and critical path
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Sprint planning is the canonical build-phase PM ritual that turns a prioritized backlog into a time-boxed commitment right before execution. The pm subphase is where capacity, story selection, and sequencing decisions live—this skill is explicitly scoped to sprint planning mechanics, not long-range roadmap work.
Where it fits
Commit sprint scope after sizing capacity against the last three sprints and PTO.
Trade launch stories against bug-fix buffer so release week does not blow the sprint.
Re-plan mid-cycle when on-call or incidents consumed the reserved capacity buffer.
How it compares
Structured sprint planning ritual instead of dumping tickets into a chat and hoping scope fits the week.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is sprint-plan for?
Solo builders and small product teams who run sprints and want an agent to formalize capacity, story selection, dependencies, and risks from backlog and velocity inputs.
When should I use sprint-plan?
Use it in Build when preparing sprint planning, in Ship when balancing launch prep against engineering capacity, and in Operate when re-planning after disruption—especially before selecting stories or estimating team availability.
Is sprint-plan safe to install?
It is planning documentation logic with no inherent exploit behavior; review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page before installing any skill from the registry.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Sprint Plan
## Sprint Planning Plan a sprint by estimating team capacity, selecting and sequencing stories, and identifying risks. ### Context You are helping plan a sprint for **$ARGUMENTS**. If the user provides files (backlogs, velocity data, team rosters, or previous sprint reports), read them first. ### Instructions 1. **Estimate team capacity**: - Number of team members and their availability (PTO, meetings, on-call) - Historical velocity (average story points per sprint from last 3 sprints) - Capacity buffer: reserve 15-20% for unexpected work, bugs, and tech debt - Calculate available capacity in story points or ideal hours 2. **Review and select stories**: - Pull from the prioritized backlog (highest priority first) - Verify each story meets the Definition of Ready (clear AC, estimated, no blockers) - Flag stories that need refinement before committing - Stop adding stories when capacity is reached 3. **Map dependencies**: - Identify stories that depend on other stories or external teams - Sequence dependent stories appropriately - Flag external dependencies and owners - Identify the critical path 4. **Identify risks and mitigations**: - Stories with high uncertainty or complexity - External dependencies that could slip - Knowledge concentration (only one person can do it) - Suggest mitigations for each risk 5. **Create the sprint plan summary**: ``` Sprint Goal: [One sentence describing what success looks like] Duration: [2 weeks / 1 week / etc.] Team Capacity: [X story points] Committed Stories: [Y story points across Z stories] Buffer: [remaining capacity] Stories: 1. [Story title] — [points] — [owner] — [dependencies] ... Risks: - [Risk] → [Mitigation] ``` 6. **Define the sprint goal**: A single, clear sentence that captures the sprint's primary value delivery. Think step by step. Save as markdown. --- ### Further Reading - [Product Owner vs Product Manager: What's the difference?](https://www.productcompass.pm/p/product-manager-vs-product-owner)