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A Scrum project often goes through a number of phases. Five phases, composed of nineteen processes, are suggested in A Guide to the Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK). After the Initiate phase comes the Plan and Estimate phase.

This phase includes six processes related to planning and estimating tasks. It is important to note that the processes are not necessarily performed sequentially or separately. At times, it may be more appropriate to combine some processes, depending on the specific requirements of each project.

Create User Stories

IIn this process, User Stories and their related Acceptance Criteria are created by the Product Owner (elaborated from the previously-defined Epics) and incorporated into the Prioritized Product Backlog. User Stories are designed to ensure that the customer’s requirements are clearly depicted and can be fully understood by the business stakeholders. User Stories need to be tangible enough and must satisfy the Definition of Ready before they can be estimated and developed by the Scrum Team.

Estimate User Stories

In this process, the Scrum Team, supported by the Scrum Master, estimates the User Stories and identifies the effort required to develop the functionality described in each User Story. Only User Stories that satisfy the Definition of Ready and are properly defined by the Product Owner are estimated by the team.

Commit User Stories

In this process, the Scrum Team commits to delivering a set of User Stories for the Sprint. The decision on which User Stories will be committed to is based on the relative value-based priority of the User Stories and the estimated effort and team velocity for one Sprint. As part of this process, the Scrum Team starts the creation of the Sprint Backlog, which contains the committed User Stories that are assigned to a particular Sprint. The backlog is refined further with task-level details as Sprint Planning continues. With this commitment from the Scrum Team given at the beginning of a Sprint as part of Sprint Planning, the content of the Sprint is defined and cannot be changed once the Sprint implementation phase has begun. 

Identify Tasks

In this process, the committed User Stories are decomposed into specific tasks and compiled into a task list. Identifying tasks could either be done at the beginning of the Sprint for all committed User Stories or before the team starts working on the tasks required for each User Story. 

Estimate Tasks

This is an optional process which involves creating task estimates if the Scrum Team sees value in doing so. In this process, the Scrum Team estimates the effort required to accomplish each task in the Task List. Task estimates could either be determined at the beginning of the Sprint for all User Stories/tasks relevant to that Sprint, or for each task just before the team starts working on the particular User Story/task. The estimation can be done using the same methods that were used for the Estimate User Stories process.

Update Sprint Backlog

In this process, the Scrum Core Team updates the Sprint Backlog with task details and if available, the task estimates. The updated Sprint Backlog will be used in the Implement phase to track the team’s progress during the upcoming Sprint. Once the Sprint Backlog is finalized and committed to by the Scrum Team, new User Stories should not be added. That said, tasks that might have been missed or overlooked from the committed User Stories may need to be added. If new requirements arise during a Sprint, they will be added to the overall Prioritized Product Backlog and included in a future Sprint.

Following the six processes of the Plan and Estimate phase will help make subsequent stages of the Scrum project a lot smoother. Remember that the processes do not need to be performed sequentially or separately. They can be adjusted to complement the specific requirements of each project. Before leaving the Plan and Estimate phase, however, it is imperative to develop a firm grasp of the tasks to be completed throughout the project.