# SPRINT PLANNING & EXECUTION FRAMEWORK
## RAG Heat & SWARMCARE - Agile Development Process

**Document Version:** 2.1 Ultimate
**Date:** October 31, 2025
**Sprint Duration:** 14 days (2 weeks)
**Methodology:** Scrum with customizations for dual-project execution

---

## SPRINT OVERVIEW

### Sprint Basics:
- **Duration:** 14 days (2 weeks)
- **Working Days:** 10 days per sprint (Mon-Fri)
- **Sprint Start:** Monday 9:00 AM
- **Sprint End:** Friday 5:00 PM (second week)
- **Total Sprints Planned:** 14 sprints (28 weeks / ~7 months)

### Sprint Ceremonies:

| Ceremony | Day/Time | Duration | Participants |
|----------|----------|----------|--------------|
| Sprint Planning | Monday 9:00 AM | 2 hours | Entire team |
| Daily Standup | Daily 9:00 AM | 15 mins | Entire team |
| Sprint Review | Friday 2:00 PM | 2 hours | Team + stakeholders |
| Sprint Retrospective | Friday 4:00 PM | 1 hour | Team only |
| Backlog Refinement | Thursday 3:00 PM | 1 hour | Tech leads + leads |

---

## SPRINT PLANNING PROCESS

### Pre-Planning (Friday before sprint start):

**Tech Leads Preparation (1 hour):**
1. Review previous sprint performance
2. Calculate team velocity
3. Review and prioritize backlog
4. Identify dependencies
5. Prepare sprint goals

**Deliverables:**
- Prioritized backlog (top 30-40 stories)
- Dependency map
- Sprint goal proposal
- Velocity calculation

---

### Sprint Planning Meeting (Monday 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM):

**Part 1: Sprint Goal & Capacity (30 mins)**

**Agenda:**
1. **Review Sprint Goals** (10 mins)
   - Tech Lead presents proposed sprint goals
   - Team discusses and refines
   - Project Director approves

2. **Capacity Planning** (10 mins)
   - Team availability check (vacations, planned absences)
   - Calculate sprint capacity
   - Adjust velocity if needed

3. **Previous Sprint Review** (10 mins)
   - Completed story points
   - Velocity trends
   - Lessons learned

**Example Sprint Goals:**
- Sprint 1: "Setup development environment and initial architecture"
- Sprint 2: "Implement core API framework and data ingestion pipeline"
- Sprint 5: "Integrate Neo4j knowledge graph with RAG pipeline"

---

**Part 2: Story Selection & Estimation (90 mins)**

**Agenda:**
1. **Story Presentation** (60 mins)
   - Tech Lead presents stories from backlog
   - Team asks clarifying questions
   - Acceptance criteria reviewed
   - Dependencies identified

2. **Story Point Estimation** (20 mins)
   - Planning poker technique
   - Team reaches consensus
   - Stories added to sprint

3. **Task Breakdown** (10 mins)
   - Each story broken into tasks
   - Tasks assigned to team members
   - Dependencies mapped

**Story Point Scale (Fibonacci):**
- **1 point:** Trivial (1-2 hours)
- **2 points:** Simple (2-4 hours)
- **3 points:** Medium (4-8 hours)
- **5 points:** Complex (1-2 days)
- **8 points:** Very complex (2-3 days)
- **13 points:** Too large - break down

**Estimation Guidelines:**
- If story is >8 points, break it down
- If team can't estimate, needs more refinement
- Include testing and documentation time
- Include code review time

---

### Sprint Planning Output:

**Sprint Backlog:**
- List of user stories committed to
- Total story points
- Stories broken down into tasks
- Task ownership assigned

**Sprint Goal:**
- Clear, measurable objective
- Aligned with project milestones
- Achievable within sprint

**Example Sprint Backlog (RAG Heat - Sprint 2):**

| ID | Story | Points | Assignee | Status |
|----|-------|--------|----------|--------|
| RH-12 | Setup FastAPI framework with auth | 5 | RH-BE-02 | Not Started |
| RH-13 | Implement user authentication (JWT) | 8 | RH-BE-02 | Not Started |
| RH-14 | Create data ingestion pipeline | 8 | RH-DE-01 | Not Started |
| RH-15 | Setup Neo4j database schema | 5 | RH-DE-01 | Not Started |
| RH-16 | Implement basic RAG pipeline | 13 | RH-BE-01 | Not Started |
| RH-17 | Setup CI/CD pipeline | 5 | SHARED-DEVOPS | Not Started |
| RH-18 | Create API documentation framework | 3 | SHARED-WRITER | Not Started |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| **TOTAL** | | **95 points** | | |

---

## USER STORY STRUCTURE

### Story Template:

```markdown
**Story ID:** RH-XXX / SC-XXX

**Title:** As a [user type], I want [goal] so that [benefit]

**Description:**
[Detailed description of the feature/requirement]

**Acceptance Criteria:**
- [ ] Criterion 1
- [ ] Criterion 2
- [ ] Criterion 3
- [ ] Tests written and passing
- [ ] Code reviewed and approved
- [ ] Documentation updated

**Technical Notes:**
[Implementation details, architecture considerations]

**Dependencies:**
- Depends on: [Story IDs]
- Blocks: [Story IDs]

**Story Points:** [1/2/3/5/8/13]

**Priority:** [High/Medium/Low]

**Epic:** [Epic name]

**Sprint:** [Sprint number]
```

---

### Example User Story:

```markdown
**Story ID:** RH-016

**Title:** As a healthcare researcher, I want to query the knowledge graph using natural language so that I can find relevant medical information quickly

**Description:**
Implement a natural language to Cypher query translator that allows users to ask questions in plain English and retrieve relevant information from the Neo4j knowledge graph. The system should understand medical terminology and ontology relationships.

**Acceptance Criteria:**
- [ ] User can input natural language query via API endpoint
- [ ] System translates query to Cypher using LLM
- [ ] Query executes against Neo4j and returns results
- [ ] Results are formatted in user-friendly JSON
- [ ] System handles invalid queries gracefully
- [ ] Response time <2 seconds for typical queries
- [ ] Unit tests cover 80%+ of code
- [ ] API documentation updated
- [ ] Integration tests passing

**Technical Notes:**
- Use LangChain's Cypher chain or similar
- Implement query validation before execution
- Cache common query patterns
- Add query logging for monitoring

**Dependencies:**
- Depends on: RH-015 (Neo4j schema setup)
- Blocks: RH-025 (RAG integration with knowledge graph)

**Story Points:** 8

**Priority:** High

**Epic:** Knowledge Graph Integration

**Sprint:** 4
```

---

## DAILY STANDUP PROCESS

### Time & Format:
- **When:** Every day at 9:00 AM
- **Duration:** 15 minutes (strict)
- **Format:** Round-robin, each person answers 3 questions
- **Location:** Slack huddle or Zoom

### Three Questions:
1. **What did I complete yesterday?**
2. **What will I work on today?**
3. **Any blockers or impediments?**

### Rules:
- Keep updates to 1 minute per person
- No problem-solving during standup
- Blockers noted for follow-up after
- If absent, post update in Slack #standup channel

### Tech Lead Responsibilities:
- Facilitate standup
- Note blockers for resolution
- Update sprint board
- Schedule follow-up meetings if needed

---

## SPRINT EXECUTION

### Daily Workflow:

**Morning (9:00 AM - 12:00 PM):**
- 9:00 AM: Daily standup
- 9:15 AM: Check sprint board, update task status
- 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM: Development work

**Afternoon (1:00 PM - 5:00 PM):**
- 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Development work
- Code reviews as they come in
- Update task status before end of day

**Task Status Workflow:**
```
To Do → In Progress → Code Review → Testing → Done
```

### Code Review Process:

**Pull Request Requirements:**
- Description of changes
- Link to story/task
- Screenshots (if UI changes)
- Test results
- Checklist completed

**Code Review Checklist:**
- [ ] Code follows style guidelines
- [ ] Tests included and passing
- [ ] No security vulnerabilities
- [ ] Documentation updated
- [ ] No unnecessary complexity
- [ ] Performance considerations addressed

**Review SLA:**
- Pull requests reviewed within 24 hours
- High priority PRs reviewed within 4 hours
- At least 1 approval required for merge

---

### Sprint Board (Jira/Linear):

**Columns:**
1. **Backlog:** Not yet started
2. **To Do:** Ready for current sprint
3. **In Progress:** Currently being worked on
4. **Code Review:** PR submitted, awaiting review
5. **Testing:** QA testing in progress
6. **Done:** Completed and merged

**Board Rules:**
- Each person maximum 2 tasks "In Progress"
- "In Progress" must be updated daily
- No task stays in "Code Review" >24 hours
- "Done" requires all acceptance criteria met

---

## SPRINT REVIEW (DEMO)

### Time & Format:
- **When:** Friday 2:00 PM (end of sprint)
- **Duration:** 2 hours
- **Participants:** Team + Project Director + Advisory Board (optional)

### Agenda:

**1. Sprint Overview (10 mins)**
- Tech Lead presents sprint goal
- Summary of completed stories
- Velocity and metrics

**2. Demonstrations (80 mins)**
- Each completed story demoed by owner
- Show working functionality (not slides)
- Q&A after each demo
- Stakeholder feedback collected

**3. Incomplete Work Review (15 mins)**
- Stories not completed
- Reasons and blockers
- Plan for completion

**4. Metrics Review (10 mins)**
- Sprint velocity
- Burndown chart
- Quality metrics (bugs, test coverage)

**5. Stakeholder Feedback (5 mins)**
- Feedback collection
- Priorities for next sprint

### Demo Guidelines:
- Show working software (not slides)
- Explain user value (not technical details)
- Keep each demo to 5-7 minutes
- Have backup plan if demo environment fails

---

## SPRINT RETROSPECTIVE

### Time & Format:
- **When:** Friday 4:00 PM (after sprint review)
- **Duration:** 1 hour
- **Participants:** Team only (no management)
- **Facilitator:** Rotating (different person each sprint)

### Agenda:

**1. Set the Stage (5 mins)**
- Review retrospective purpose
- Set ground rules (be respectful, honest, constructive)

**2. Gather Data (15 mins)**
- What went well? (team writes on sticky notes/digital board)
- What didn't go well?
- What should we try?

**3. Generate Insights (20 mins)**
- Group similar items
- Discuss top 3-5 issues
- Identify root causes

**4. Decide What to Do (15 mins)**
- Identify 2-3 action items
- Assign owners
- Set completion dates

**5. Close (5 mins)**
- Summarize action items
- Appreciate team contributions

### Retrospective Techniques (Rotate):
- Start/Stop/Continue
- Glad/Sad/Mad
- 4 Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For)
- Sailboat (Wind/Anchor/Island)

### Action Item Tracking:
- Document in retrospective notes
- Add to next sprint backlog
- Review progress in next retrospective

---

## BACKLOG REFINEMENT

### Time & Format:
- **When:** Thursday 3:00 PM (mid-sprint)
- **Duration:** 1 hour
- **Participants:** Tech Leads + Project Director + key engineers

### Purpose:
- Review upcoming stories
- Clarify requirements
- Estimate complexity
- Identify dependencies
- Prepare for next sprint planning

### Agenda:

**1. Review Backlog Priorities (10 mins)**
- Project Director shares business priorities
- Tech Leads provide technical input

**2. Story Refinement (40 mins)**
- Review top 20-30 stories in backlog
- Clarify acceptance criteria
- Add technical notes
- Rough estimation (T-shirt sizes)

**3. Dependency Identification (10 mins)**
- Map story dependencies
- Identify technical risks
- Plan spikes if needed

### Output:
- Refined backlog (top 30 stories)
- Stories ready for sprint planning
- Spikes identified for research

---

## EPIC & ROADMAP PLANNING

### Epic Structure:

**Epic Definition:**
Large body of work that spans multiple sprints and has clear business value.

**Epic Template:**
```markdown
**Epic ID:** EP-XXX

**Epic Name:** [Descriptive name]

**Business Value:** [Why this epic matters]

**User Personas:** [Who benefits]

**Success Criteria:**
- [ ] Measurable outcome 1
- [ ] Measurable outcome 2

**Stories:** [List of story IDs]

**Timeline:** [Start sprint - End sprint]

**Status:** [Not Started / In Progress / Completed]
```

---

### Example Epics:

**RAG Heat Epics:**
1. **EP-RH-001: Core RAG Pipeline**
   - Sprints 2-4
   - Stories: RH-010 to RH-045
   - Value: Enable basic document retrieval and generation

2. **EP-RH-002: Knowledge Graph Integration**
   - Sprints 3-6
   - Stories: RH-046 to RH-080
   - Value: Leverage ontologies for enhanced medical reasoning

3. **EP-RH-003: Production Deployment**
   - Sprints 7-8
   - Stories: RH-081 to RH-110
   - Value: Production-ready system with HIPAA compliance

**SWARMCARE Epics:**
1. **EP-SC-001: Multi-Agent Framework**
   - Sprints 2-4
   - Stories: SC-010 to SC-050
   - Value: Enable agent collaboration for healthcare workflows

2. **EP-SC-002: Real-time Collaboration**
   - Sprints 3-6
   - Stories: SC-051 to SC-090
   - Value: Live updates and coordination across agents

3. **EP-SC-003: Clinical Validation**
   - Sprints 7-10
   - Stories: SC-091 to SC-130
   - Value: Validated system ready for healthcare use

---

## VELOCITY TRACKING

### Velocity Calculation:

**Formula:**
```
Velocity = Total Story Points Completed in Sprint
```

**Rolling Average Velocity:**
```
Average Velocity = Sum of last 3 sprints / 3
```

### Velocity Metrics:

| Sprint | Planned | Completed | Velocity | Team Notes |
|--------|---------|-----------|----------|------------|
| Sprint 1 | 80 | 65 | 65 | Onboarding slow |
| Sprint 2 | 90 | 85 | 85 | Ramping up |
| Sprint 3 | 95 | 90 | 90 | Good rhythm |
| Sprint 4 | 95 | 92 | 92 | Stable |
| **Avg (last 3)** | | | **89** | |

### Using Velocity for Planning:
- Plan next sprint based on average velocity
- Account for team changes (additions/departures)
- Account for holidays/vacations
- Buffer for unexpected issues (plan 90% of velocity)

---

## SPRINT BURNDOWN

### Burndown Chart:

**X-Axis:** Days in sprint (Day 1 to Day 10)
**Y-Axis:** Remaining story points

**Ideal Burndown:**
- Linear decrease from total points to zero
- Complete all work by end of sprint

**Monitoring:**
- Update daily after standup
- Flag if burndown deviates >20% from ideal
- Tech Lead investigates and takes action

**Example:**
```
Day 0: 95 points remaining
Day 1: 90 points remaining
Day 2: 85 points remaining
...
Day 10: 0 points remaining
```

---

## DEFINITION OF DONE (DoD)

### Story-Level DoD:

**A story is "Done" when:**
- [ ] All acceptance criteria met
- [ ] Code written and follows style guide
- [ ] Unit tests written (80%+ coverage)
- [ ] Integration tests passing
- [ ] Code reviewed and approved (1+ approval)
- [ ] No critical or high severity bugs
- [ ] Documentation updated (API docs, user guide)
- [ ] Feature deployed to staging environment
- [ ] Product Owner (Tech Lead) approval
- [ ] Story demo completed in sprint review

### Sprint-Level DoD:

**A sprint is "Done" when:**
- [ ] All committed stories meet Story DoD
- [ ] Sprint goal achieved
- [ ] No critical bugs in staging
- [ ] All PRs merged
- [ ] Documentation up to date
- [ ] Sprint review completed
- [ ] Sprint retrospective completed
- [ ] Next sprint planned

---

## DEFECT MANAGEMENT

### Bug Severity Levels:

**Critical (P0):**
- System down or major functionality broken
- Security vulnerability
- Data loss risk
- **Response Time:** Immediate
- **Fix Timeline:** Same day

**High (P1):**
- Major feature not working
- Performance degradation
- Workaround exists
- **Response Time:** Within 4 hours
- **Fix Timeline:** Within current sprint

**Medium (P2):**
- Minor feature issue
- UI/UX problem
- Edge case bug
- **Response Time:** Within 24 hours
- **Fix Timeline:** Next sprint

**Low (P3):**
- Cosmetic issue
- Nice-to-have fix
- Documentation error
- **Response Time:** When capacity available
- **Fix Timeline:** Backlog

### Bug Workflow:
```
Reported → Triaged → Assigned → In Progress → Fixed → Verified → Closed
```

### Bug Triage (Daily):
- QA Engineer reviews new bugs
- Assigns severity and priority
- Tech Lead assigns to developer
- Critical bugs interrupt sprint work

---

## TECHNICAL DEBT MANAGEMENT

### Technical Debt Definition:
Code or architecture shortcuts that speed up delivery but create future maintenance burden.

### Debt Tracking:
- Tag stories/tasks with "tech-debt" label
- Maintain technical debt backlog
- Review quarterly with tech leads

### Debt Paydown Strategy:
- Allocate 10-15% of sprint capacity to tech debt
- Mandatory tech debt sprint every 4 sprints
- No new features during tech debt sprint
- Focus on high-impact debt items

### Debt Review (Quarterly):
- Tech Leads present debt inventory
- Prioritize based on impact and risk
- Plan debt paydown sprints
- Track debt trends over time

---

## SPRINT METRICS & REPORTING

### Key Metrics Tracked:

**Velocity Metrics:**
- Sprint velocity (points completed)
- Rolling 3-sprint average
- Velocity trend (improving/declining)

**Quality Metrics:**
- Test coverage percentage
- Bug count by severity
- Code review turnaround time
- Deployment success rate

**Team Metrics:**
- Sprint completion rate (% of committed work done)
- Story cycle time (days from start to done)
- Code review cycle time
- Team satisfaction score

### Weekly Status Report Template:

```markdown
**Week:** [Date Range]
**Sprint:** [Sprint Number] - Day X of 10

## Progress Summary
- Stories completed this week: X / Y
- Story points completed: XX
- Current velocity: XX points

## Completed This Week
- [Story ID]: [Story title]
- [Story ID]: [Story title]

## In Progress
- [Story ID]: [Story title] - [% complete]
- [Story ID]: [Story title] - [% complete]

## Blockers
- [Blocker description] - Owner: [Name] - ETA: [Date]

## Risks
- [Risk description] - Mitigation: [Plan]

## Next Week Plan
- [Story ID]: [Story title]
- [Story ID]: [Story title]

## Metrics
- Velocity: XX points
- Test Coverage: XX%
- Bugs Open: XX (P0: X, P1: X, P2: X, P3: X)
```

---

## SPRINT ZERO (SETUP SPRINT)

### Special First Sprint:

**Sprint 0 Goals:**
- Team onboarding
- Environment setup
- Tool provisioning
- Initial architecture decisions
- Backlog creation

**Duration:** 2 weeks (same as regular sprint)

**Key Deliverables:**
- [ ] All team members onboarded
- [ ] Development environments setup
- [ ] Git repositories created
- [ ] CI/CD pipeline functional
- [ ] Project management tool configured
- [ ] Communication channels setup
- [ ] Initial backlog (100+ stories)
- [ ] Sprint 1 planned

**No Velocity Expected:**
- Sprint 0 is for setup, not feature delivery
- Velocity tracking starts from Sprint 1

---

## RELEASE PLANNING

### Release Cadence:
- **Major Releases:** Every 4 sprints (~8 weeks)
- **Minor Releases:** Every 2 sprints (~4 weeks)
- **Hotfixes:** As needed (critical bugs)

### Release Process:

**1. Release Planning (2 weeks before):**
- Tech Lead identifies stories for release
- QA plans regression testing
- DevOps prepares release infrastructure

**2. Feature Freeze (1 week before):**
- No new features accepted
- Only bug fixes and documentation
- Release notes drafted

**3. Release Week:**
- Monday: Final testing
- Tuesday: Staging deployment
- Wednesday: Stakeholder approval
- Thursday: Production deployment
- Friday: Monitoring and support

**4. Post-Release:**
- Metrics collection
- Post-mortem if issues
- Release retrospective

---

## DEPENDENCY MANAGEMENT

### Cross-Team Dependencies:

**Between RAG Heat & SWARMCARE:**
- Identify dependencies in sprint planning
- Create dependency board
- Daily check-in between tech leads
- Escalate blockers immediately

**Dependency Tracking:**
```
Story RH-025 depends on SC-018
- SC-018 status: In Progress (70% complete)
- RH-025 blocked until: Friday
- Risk: Medium
- Mitigation: Prepare with mock data
```

### Dependency Resolution:
- Tech leads meet weekly to resolve
- Prioritize blocking dependencies
- Communicate delays early
- Create workarounds when possible

---

## SPRINT CALENDAR (SAMPLE)

### Sprint 1 Calendar:

| Day | Date | Activities |
|-----|------|------------|
| Mon Week 1 | Oct 28 | Sprint Planning (9-11 AM), Development starts |
| Tue Week 1 | Oct 29 | Daily Standup, Development |
| Wed Week 1 | Oct 30 | Daily Standup, Development, Research Session |
| Thu Week 1 | Oct 31 | Daily Standup, Development, Backlog Refinement (3 PM) |
| Fri Week 1 | Nov 1 | Daily Standup, Development, Tech Sync (4 PM) |
| Mon Week 2 | Nov 4 | Daily Standup, Development |
| Tue Week 2 | Nov 5 | Daily Standup, Development |
| Wed Week 2 | Nov 6 | Daily Standup, Development, Research Session |
| Thu Week 2 | Nov 7 | Daily Standup, Development |
| Fri Week 2 | Nov 8 | Daily Standup, Sprint Review (2 PM), Retro (4 PM) |

---

## TOOLS & AUTOMATION

### Project Management:
- **Tool:** Jira or Linear
- **Boards:** Separate for RAG Heat, SWARMCARE, Shared
- **Automation:** Auto-move stories when PR merged

### CI/CD:
- **Tool:** GitHub Actions
- **Triggers:** On PR, on merge to develop, on tag
- **Steps:** Lint, test, build, deploy to staging

### Monitoring:
- **Sprint Dashboard:** Real-time velocity and burndown
- **Quality Dashboard:** Test coverage, bug trends
- **Team Dashboard:** Individual contributions

---

## DOCUMENT REFERENCES

This document is part of the comprehensive project plan:

1. Master Project Plan
2. Resource Allocation & Organizational Chart
3. **Sprint Planning & Execution Framework** ← YOU ARE HERE
4. Technical Architecture & Infrastructure Plan
5. Advisory Board & Stakeholder Engagement Plan
6. Compensation & Performance Metrics Framework
7. Research & Documentation Strategy
8. Risk Management & Compliance Plan
9. Communication & Collaboration Framework
10. Timeline & Milestone Tracker

---

**END OF SPRINT PLANNING & EXECUTION FRAMEWORK**
