The Best 16 Sprint Planning Tools and Software

Businesses of all kinds rely on the Sprint project management framework to stay efficient, organised, and goal-oriented. Scrum Sprint planning allows teams to plan their tasks in a structured way, ensuring that all team members understand the objectives and tasks involved in each project.

As a whole, building an Agile culture in your organisation has been shown to increase commercial performance by an outstanding 237%. Well-run Sprint planning sessions are key to making the most of an Agile approach. 

To make sure that the entire process runs smoothly and efficiently, you’ll need to find the right Sprint planning tools and software. But with so many options available on the market today, it can be difficult to know which solutions are right for your organisation.

In this detailed guide, we’ll take you through the top 15 Sprint planning tools and software apps so that you can choose the one that works best for your team. Let's get started!

Sprint Planning Definition

Sprint planning is a key event in the Agile project development process. It is an iterative process focused on defining and planning what work will be done during a Sprint, which typically ranges from two to four weeks.

During this meeting, user stories are discussed, tasks are identified, and an estimate of the effort required to complete each task is created. The output from this meeting becomes the Sprint Backlog, which defines what will be developed during the next sprint.

The goal of Sprint planning is to determine how and when to achieve the highest possible value for users with the resources available in the next iteration of work. To achieve this, all stakeholders must agree on what needs to be done, how it will be accomplished, and when it needs to be completed. 

What Is a Sprint Planning Tool?

A Sprint planning tool is a software application that helps teams plan and manage their Sprints more efficiently. 

This tool is used during planning meetings to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page about what needs to get done and when. Teams can also review historical data from previous Sprints in order to make better decisions about upcoming projects.

Moreover, this type of tool facilitates coordination between different roles within a team, such as developers or designers, providing an overview of the project’s progress and helping ensure that all tasks are completed in a timely manner.

Why Are Sprint Planning Tools Useful?

Sprint planning tools are useful because they provide an efficient way for teams to plan and execute their work. By providing a single platform that all members of a team can access, these tools enable better communication between the different stakeholders in a project.

Online Sprint planning tools can be used by remote teams

With Sprint planning tools, members can assign tasks to each other as well as share updates in real time, wherever they are.

These tools are specifically designed to help distributed teams effectively plan and collaborate on projects, providing an easy way for remote teams to organise their tasks, track progress, and stay up-to-date with their team’s work.

Track data more effectively

Sprint planning tools are excellent for tracking data. They provide ways for teams to collaborate more effectively by using an online workspace for sharing ideas, documents, files, and other information related to a project.

These tools also provide visibility into progress by tracking the status of each task as it is completed or updated over the course of a Sprint. This lets teams quickly identify any issues that may arise during the course of a project, such as unforeseen obstacles or missed deadlines.

Easy and enjoyable to use

Sprint planning tools are designed to make the process of organising and managing projects faster and easier for everyone involved.

They provide an efficient way to plan, manage, track, and report on project progress without having to use complicated spreadsheets or paper-based systems.

With the right tool, teams can quickly define goals, assign tasks, view deadlines in one place, visualise their workflow in a timeline format, collaborate with colleagues in real time, and generate reports that help them stay informed about their project’s status. 

The Best Sprint Planning Tools to Use

Now that you know how vital it is, you're sure to get a Sprint planning tool. The only question is which to pick. Fortunately, there’s a wealth of effective tools available for practically every project.

Listed below are the best Sprint planning tools you can use!

1. GoPlanning (GoRetro)

Cost: Free; premium starts at $29 a month per team

GoPlanning (GoRetro) is a reliable retrospective and Sprint planning tool used to help teams plan and execute Agile projects. It allows users to quickly create a backlog of tasks, prioritise them into Sprints, assign resources to each task, track progress, and measure success.

The powerful reporting feature lets teams track their progress over time, providing detailed information about how long it took to complete each task, what resources were used, and if any changes were made throughout the project's lifecycle.

This helps teams gain valuable insight into where they may need to make improvements or adjust their strategies in order to get better results from their projects. With deep Jira integration, your team can focus on what matters most.

Depending on the subscription tier, the tool also provides a variety of templates and resources to make retrospectives a breeze, such as a Poker Planning, capacity calculator, customised Joker cards, as well as SOC2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 compliance. 

Top Features 

• Sprint Planning
• Capacity Planning
• Planning Poker Estimations
• Sprint Monitoring
• AI-Generated Suggested Talking-Points
• Task Assignment (Soon!)

Best Use Case

GoRetro is best suited for data-driven teams that are looking to get that extra edge.

2. Jira Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $7.75 a month per user

Jira is a powerful collaboration tool created by Atlassian that helps teams plan, organise, and track their Sprints. The main benefit of using Jira is its ability to easily visualise tasks and progress over time.

Known for its features such as priority setting, progress tracking, project mapping, and task management, Jira has been tested and proven as the go-to Sprint planning tool by many organisations.

Depending on your subscription tier, you have the option of accessing advanced roadmaps, sandboxes, and release tracks, as well as centralised security controls and user subscriptions with 24-hour premium support.

Top Features

• Scrum Boards
• Road Maps
• Reports and Insights

Best Use Case

‍ Jira is best used for Agile issues and tracking.

3. Asana

Cost: Free; Premium is $11.39/month; Business is $25/month

Asana offers a comprehensive and intuitive platform to help project managers plan, manage and organize Sprints. It allows users to create projects, assign tasks to team members, set deadlines, and track progress. 

With Gantt charts, lists, boards, and calendars at your disposal in addition to an interactive timeline view of all tasks enables visualization of each project as a whole. Asana has many features, including a workflow builder for upcoming sprints, desktop and mobile apps for access on any device, and project templates. 

The customizable dashboards allow teams to personalize their experience while tracking task completion through percent-complete tracking helps keep track of performance on all levels. Accessibility is enhanced with the ability to sync with Gmail, Zoom, Splunk, NetScope, Jotform, and more.

The platform offers a free trial before you commit to its paid plans, starting from $10.99 per user, per month. 

Asana is an excellent sprint planning tool for teams of all sizes requiring collaboration and a comprehensive view of upcoming tasks to stay on track and remain productive while working remotely or at the office.  

Furthermore, its easy-to-use interface enables users to get accustomed quickly and fully use the available features without difficulty. All these features allow team leaders to ensure that projects are completed efficiently, on time, and within budget, making Asana an ideal choice for efficient Sprint planning

Top Features

• Board Views
• Views and Reporting
• Various Integrations
• Project Management

Best Use Case

Asana is best used for project management.

4. Monday.com Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $8 a month per user

Monday.com is a project management and collaboration platform that helps teams stay organised, connected, and productive. It features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for creating projects and tasks, managing workflows, tracking progress, collaborating with team members in real time, and more.

With Monday's powerful automation capabilities and Zapier integrations, you can streamline your processes and get more done in less time. Its timeline overview feature allows users to quickly see which team members are working on what tasks at any given moment without having to go through multiple reports or emails.

Additionally, Monday allows teams to customise their workspace based on their needs and integrates with many popular third-party applications such as Gmail, Slack, Asana, Dropbox, and Google Drive.

Top Features

• Dashboard
• Kanban Boards
• Gantt Charts
• Integrations

Best Use Case

Monday.com is best used for both large and small teams.

5. Miro Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $8 a month per user

Miro is a powerful tool for teams to collaborate on their Sprint planning. Incorporating a simple whiteboard interface and intuitive features such as sticky notes, assignee labels, and task cards, Miro allows teams to easily establish a clear plan of action.

Miro's visual boards make it easy for everyone on the team to understand what's going on with each project or Sprint at any given time. Teams can break down complex projects into smaller pieces by creating swimlanes and columns to organise tasks.

The ability to integrate with other project management tools, such as JIRA and Trello, also allows teams to keep all of their Sprint planning information in one place. This helps everyone stay organised and communicate effectively during Sprint planning meetings so that everyone is on the same page. 

Top Features

• Jira Integration
• Digital Stickers
• Pre-made Stickers
• Screen Sharing

Best Use Case

Miro is best used for design-centric teams.

6. ClickUp Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $5 a month per user

ClickUp is a project management tool designed to help teams plan their sprints quickly and efficiently. It's easy to use, and its features make it one of the best Sprint planning tools available today.

The main feature that makes ClickUp’s Sprint planning stand out is its comprehensive task management system. Its timeline view allows you to easily visualise all the tasks in your Sprint and adjust their order as needed.

ClickUp's project management features are extensive. As a team hub for calendars, schedules, reminders, and documents, ClickUp can also be used for project release planning, Sprint management, team boards, frameworks, daily updates, and backlog management. 

Top Features

• Sprints
• Customizable Tasks
• Automation 
• Integrations
• Real-Time Reporting
• Native Time Tracking
• Gannt Chart
• Kanban Board

Best Use Case

Clickup is best used for small teams on a budget.

7. LucidSpark Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $7.95 a month per user

With LucidSpark, teams can collaborate on virtual whiteboards in real-time. Team members can easily share ideas, brainstorm, and align on new ideas using the digital canvas, resulting in actionable next steps.

LucidSpark Sprint planning provides a visual representation of the work that needs to be done in each Sprint, as well as estimates of how much time each task will take. Its main feature is its visual representation, which includes unlimited shapes, freehand drawing, emoji reactions, and various editable boards.

Over the years, LucidSpark has received numerous awards for its services, products, and company culture. LucidSpark's visual collaboration products are also used by leading companies worldwide, including Google, GE, and NBC Universal. 

Top Features

• Item Prioritization
• Sprint Templated
• Remote Collaboration
• Platform Integrations

Best Use Case

LucidSpark is best used for remote teams.

8. Wrike Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $9.80 a month per user

Wrike is a Scrum-based work management software solution that is popular among both mid-sized and enterprise-level companies. It provides teams with customizable workflows that allow them to track progress at each stage of the process.

Among Wrike's features are project management, goal tracking, progress tracking, project planning and management, task management, and status updates. You can check your projects on the go with mobile apps on iOS and Android.

Wrike also offers "Wrike for Marketers," an optional tool that integrates with many well-known third-party applications such as Adobe, Google Drive, Microsoft Office 365 and Teams, Dropbox, and more.

Top Features

• Dashboards
• Project Resource Planning 
• Gannt Charts
• Kanban Boards

Best Use Case

‍Wrike is best used for Agile project management.

9. Sinnaps Sprint Planning 

Cost: Free; premium starts at $9 a month per user

With more than 100 companies joining every week, Sinnaps is an emerging cloud-based project management application that provides real-time project information and tracking.

The most impressive thing about Sinnaps is that it organises and prioritises tasks automatically using a PERT and CPM-based rendering engine. To gain insight, users can group, filter, and order information sets. Additionally, it has a portfolio management feature.

With Sinnaps, you can also create Gantt charts that are extremely useful for planning, scheduling, and monitoring projects. This feature helps you improve your planning and scheduling, collaborate with remote teammates, allocate resources, and delegate tasks.

Top Features

• Project Planning and Monitoring
• Gantt charts 
• Real cost overviews, 
• Integrated Communication
• Automated Prioritization
• Resource Optimization
• Budget Management

Best Use Case

Sinnaps is best used for teams looking to reduce costs.

10. Craft.io Sprint Planning

Cost: Starts at $39 a month per user

Craft.io is a product management software tool that empowers leaders to do their work, from gathering feedback, forming strategies, decision-making in developing roadmaps, and more, in one convenient application that integrates with the most commonly used platforms today.

By integrating and collecting fragmented product data, Craft.io is the authoritative data source that allows leaders to take charge, have a greater impact on stakeholders, and be more confident about their product decisions.

The goal of Craft.io is to provide product teams with a place of their own and to create a transparent environment in which these teams can collaborate and share ideas to create better products that meet the needs of customers.

Top Features

• Product Backlog
• Story Mapping
• Workspace Templates
• Team Feedback
• Presentation Mode

Best Use Case

Craft.io is best used for more experienced agile teams.

11. Shortcut Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $8.50 a month per user

Shortcut, formerly known as Clubhouse, combines planning and development into a seamless experience. This solution  facilitates the planning, building, and launching of better software products by Agile software teams.

Designed for developers, Shortcut offers a robust set of popular integrations as well as an API for automating workflows. In other words, you can create Stories directly from a Doc, or link a new Doc to a previously created document.

In addition, Shortcut integrates relevant data from GitHub, Slack, Figma, and other applications, so that no one has to work in isolation.

Top Features

• Kanban Boards
• Team roadmaps
• Sprint Reports
• Team Coordination

Best Use Case

Shortcut is best used for more established teams.

12. Tara Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $8 a month per user

Tara provides a straightforward and streamlined interface for Sprint planning, with no complex features to get in the way.

Tara's easy-to-use interface makes it easier for your product development team to accomplish tasks without expending too much effort. The platform is designed with simplicity in mind, so you can plan your Sprints and groom your backlog quickly and easily.

Furthermore, Tara’s integrated insights enable you to track progress on a daily or weekly basis, allowing you to stay on top of releases. It includes several automation tools that save time and streamline workflow, such as auto-completing tasks from source control after Git sync.

Top Features

• Predictive Analysis
• Process Automation 
• Collaboration
• Real-Time Tracking

Best Use Case

Tara is best used for less-experienced agile teams.

13. Teamwork Sprint Planning

Cost: Free; premium starts at $5.99 a month per user

Teamwork is an online project management system that makes it easy for teams to manage collaborations and tasks.

It gives users the tools they need to achieve project goals, from creating unlimited tasks in a centralised space where priorities can be set, to generating subtasks and tracking budgets. You can also easily integrate CRM, Desk, Chat, and Spaces into your setup when you're ready.

This tool has mobile support for iOS and Android devices, plus core features such as drag-and-drop functionality, compliance tracking, product backlog management, and multi-language options. Additionally, Teamwork offers templates for projects as well as collaborative tools.

Top Features

• Time Tracking
• Project Profitability
• Automation
• Gannt Chart
• Collaborate
• Kanban Board

Best Use Case

Teamwork is best used for client management.

14. Scrum Mate Sprint Planning

Cost: Starts at $29 a month for up to 7 users

Adaptive Consulting launched Scrum Mate in 2009 with the aim of making it an Agile project management tool for digital agencies and software development teams.

The Scrum Mate program includes features such as project tracking, team management, priority setting, Agile support, a backlog system, Kanban boards, and many more, all used to optimise workflow management and team productivity.

Scrum Mate is a great choice for teams that employ the Scrum methodology. It's simple, fast, and easy to use, with an attractive interface. It’s currently available for iOS only.

Top Features

• Kanban Board
• Task Management 
• Time Tracking
• Progress Monitoring

Best Use Case

‍Scrum Mate is best used in backlog management.

15. Productboard Sprint Planning

Cost: Starts at $20 a month per user

ProductBoard is a comprehensive product management system that puts customers first. It helps teams to gain insight into user needs and integrates easily with existing processes to foster collaboration across the organisation.

With over 6,000 companies on board, including Zendesk, JP Morgan Chase & Co., and Avast, ProductBoard is a tried-and-true platform for facilitating the launch of upcoming products while gaining customer feedback.

Its key capabilities include roadmap creation, task prioritisation, progress tracking, customer feedback aggregation, ideation management, issue resolution, and Kanban boards. ProductBoard also enables remote team members to add notes to client feedback while maintaining secure data security protocols.

Top Features 

• Build Roadmaps
• Kanban Board
• Progress Monitoring
• Task Ranking

Best Use Case

Productboard is best used for client management.

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16. Aha Sprint Planning

Cost: Starts at $9 a month per user

Aha is a product development software program that provides a comprehensive toolkit to help you develop projects from concept to launch.

This application offers users the opportunity to collaborate, brainstorm new ideas, and plan development with its Aha Create, Ideas, Roadmaps, and Develop products. Aha also runs an academy to teach people how to become product development experts.

With features such as custom workflows, Kanban boards, customer ideation Gantt/timeline views, and due date tracking, as well as being trusted by more than 600,000 product builders across a variety of industries, Aha is the preferred choice for many organisations.

What's more is that this platform integrates with several popular services such as Jira, GitHub, Trello, Zendesk, Salesforce, Google Analytics, and Slack.

Top Features

• Roadmap Templates
• Integrations
• Custom Workflows
• Single Sign-On

Best Use Case

Aha! is best used for enterprise agile teams.

Final Thoughts

We hope this guide to the best Scrum Sprint planning tools will help you get started in choosing the best one for your team.

Remember that while it may take some time to set up and use these tools, they can save you a great deal of time and effort when it comes to managing your Sprints. Good luck!