After experiencing a few sprints, the sprint planning sessions might be long or disorganized with time spent figuring out which story to include or not (right sized and pointed). It might be wise to consider adding the process generally known as backlog “grooming”.
Release planning is the continuous process of defining, splitting and prioritizing the stories in the release backlog. The agile approach assumes there will be changes (such as new customer requests, discovery of dependency issues, and feedback and learning from sprint deliveries) that will necessitate adjustments in the priority and definition of the stories in a release.
Agile teams should do everything in their control to stay away from any meetings and instead strictly attend the Scrum ceremonies. These ceremonies are listed below and they are meant to offer just the right level of planned group sessions during a sprint to keep everyone informed. Ad hoc meetings to discuss design, testing and anything else that the team needs to be successful strictly on the item included in the sprint happen on an as needed basis.
