Poor sprint planning habits can tank your team's velocity before development even begins. Here are four anti-patterns that destroy sprint success and how to fix them.
1. The "Story Point Stuffing" Trap
The Problem: Teams cram stories totaling their historical velocity without considering story complexity or dependencies.
The Fix: Use Jira's Sprint Report to analyze your completion patterns. Navigate to Reports > Sprint Report and review your last 3-5 sprints. Look for patterns where large stories (8+ points) frequently carry over. Cap individual stories at 5 points and break down larger work.
2. Ignoring the "Definition of Ready"
The Problem: Teams pull unrefined stories into sprints, causing mid-sprint blockers and scope creep.
The Fix: Create a custom field called "Ready for Sprint" in Jira. Before sprint planning, filter your backlog using JQL: project = "YOUR_PROJECT" AND "Ready for Sprint" = Yes AND fixVersion is EMPTY. Only plan from this filtered list.
3. Sprint Goal Amnesia
The Problem: Teams start sprints without a clear, measurable objective.
The Fix: Always set a sprint goal in Jira's sprint creation dialog. Make it specific: "Complete user authentication flow" not "Work on login features." Reference this goal during daily standups when prioritizing work.
4. The Capacity Miscalculation
The Problem: Planning for full team capacity without accounting for holidays, meetings, or support work.
The Fix: Calculate available capacity before planning. If your team typically completes 40 story points, but has 20% time allocated to support tickets, plan for 32 points maximum. Track this using Jira's Time Tracking feature to validate your estimates.
Pro Tip: Review these anti-patterns during your retrospectives. Small planning improvements compound into significant velocity gains over time.