How to carry out a Sprint 0

A Sprint 0 is a 2-3 week period at the start of a project (i.e. an initiative) intended for the team to come together to discover the work that's ahead and develop a backlog and project skeleton.

Please note that before you start a Sprint 0 you should have the project team in place.

In order to build a backlog and a project skeleton a team must have a clear definition of the work that has to be done.

This process may involve meetings with the client, leadership or other stakeholders to develop a clear understand of the initiative and the work that has to be done.

This process should be focused on in a way that can be clearly broken down into epics, user stories and agile user stories.

Divide your team into groups that make sense for the Sprint 0.

Suggestions include: project management, design, strategy, backend development and frontend development.

This split should focus on dividing the team into groups that will enhance how they discover the work that's ahead.

This last step is focused on creating the backlog and project skeleton.

Match group leads with a project manager (PM) or the product owner.

If there is more than one PM, match the team leads with the correct PM for their group.

Get the group leads to work with the PM to define the epics, user stories and agile user stories.

Hold a meeting between the product owner, the relevant product manager and the individual groups (i.e. design, front-end development and backend development) to introduce the project and brief them on the discovery that should take place.

This process may involve auditing codebases, performing tech validation, researching design patterns, styleguides or APIs.

The group should be informed of the output that is expected for the Sprint 0, which may include a project skeleton for the code base or setting up a Figma design file in order for it to be ready for the team to carry out the work.

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