Too many teams spend too much time in sprint planning. Here, let me try to clear how you can use the idea of only planning two-thirds of a sprint’s tasks during the planning meeting to determine if your team is spending the right amount of time in its sprint planning meetings.

Here’s what you do.

For a few sprints, change nothing about sprint planning. But track how many tasks are identified during the planning meeting and how many tasks are added during the sprint. An added task will be something like, “Oops, we forgot this story also affects one of the reports.” Track that.

A tool makes this easy. But, if you’re using index cards or sticky notes, put a discreet dot on the paper such that the team doesn’t notice it.

At the end of each sprint, you’ll know something like your team did 58 total tasks, 12 of which were identified during the sprint. That means 46/58 or 79 percent were identified during the planning meeting. Do this for three sprints. You’ll see if that’s close to identifying two-thirds during the planning meeting.

If a team is averaging well above two thirds, compliment team members on their ability to plan and then cut the next meeting shorter. Tell them they are thinking too hard and taking planning too seriously. Save time by doing it faster and letting them get to work sooner.

But if they are averaging much less than two-thirds, explain that they will probably benefit from more time spent in sprint planning. Clarify that the goal isn’t a perfect set of tasks, but the improved understanding that comes from doing the planning. Then have the team spend a bit longer than in prior sessions until they start getting about two-thirds of tasks identified during planning meetings.

Using this as a guideline for how long your sprint planning meetings should be will help your teams succeed with agile.