Continuing Sprint Planning, after the Scrum Team agrees on a Sprint Goal for the home-robot company's app team, they turn to selecting specific Product Backlog items to forecast for the Sprint. Which Sprint Planning topic does this activity represent?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
After the team agrees on the destination, the "what" topic is where they pick which suitcases actually go on the trip. The Developers, working with the Product Owner, select the Product Backlog items that fit toward the Sprint Goal and are forecast for the upcoming Sprint. That selection becomes the working list, not the finished plan for how the work gets done.
Full Explanation
Sprint Planning's second topic answers what can be done: the Developers select Product Backlog items to forecast for the Sprint, often through discussion with the Product Owner about the items' intent and how they best fit toward the Sprint Goal set in the first topic. This is squarely a Developers' decision - they are the ones who judge what's forecastable based on their capacity and past performance, not a number handed down from outside. Calling this the "why" topic reverses the sequence; the Sprint Goal is already set by the time item selection happens, and selecting items doesn't restate a purpose, it operationalizes one already agreed. Calling it the "how" topic skips a step; deciding which items to pull in is different from planning the technical approach and breaking those items into a day-by-day plan, which comes next. Treating this as a separate backlog-refinement event confuses two different activities - refinement is an ongoing activity that keeps the Product Backlog ready, while this selection happens inside Sprint Planning itself using an already-refined backlog. Caveat: the Product Backlog going into Sprint Planning should already be refined enough that this selection doesn't turn into a lengthy grooming session. Operational check: if item selection is consuming most of the Sprint Planning timebox, that's a signal the Product Backlog wasn't refined enough beforehand.