How to Plan for a Sprint Effectively

What do we know about Sprint Goals? The 2020 Scrum Guide clearly states that a team commits to a Sprint Goal rather than how many User Stories the team can complete. Having a Sprint Goal is a great idea, but I often see it misfiring. The latest Scrum Guide focuses more on Sprint and Product goals, which is good.

However, setting goals will only help us if we change our thinking from output to outcome. If we set goals based on delivering features, we risk still ending up in a feature factory When setting goals, we should have a customer-centric perspective. We need to think as if we are in their shoes. Businesses are often tempted to give IT solutions rather than explain their problems. To tell what functionality or features they need. Speaking in a metaphor, the business is unwilling to let us walk in their shoes.