Customization Guide — Sprint Planning Dashboard

How to adapt this sprint planning system to your team's specific workflow, size, and methodology.

Customizing for Your Team Size

Solo Developer

• Remove the "Assignee" column (or keep it for context if you wear multiple hats)
• Simplify standups to a daily journal format
• Use the backlog as a personal task list with sprint timeboxes
• Velocity tracking helps you estimate side projects and freelance work

Small Team (2-5 people)

• Use Notion's Person property type for Assignee (requires a shared workspace)
• Enable Notify on assignments so team members get pinged
• Create a shared standup view filtered by "Today" — review in your morning sync
• Consider adding a "Reviewer" property to backlog items for PR assignments

Large Team (6-15 people)

• Add a Team/Squad property to backlog items if you have sub-teams
• Create separate board views per squad, all pulling from the same backlog
• Add a Sprint Planning database to track planning session notes separately
• Consider adding an Epic database with relations from backlog items for roadmap-level tracking

Multiple Teams

• Duplicate the entire system per team, or share one backlog with a Team filter
• Add a top-level "Program Board" page with linked views from each team's sprint
• Create a cross-team dependency tracker (add a "Blocked By Team" relation)

Customizing the Workflow

Different Status Workflows

Simple (3 statuses):

To Do → In Progress → Done

Standard (5 statuses — the default):

Backlog → To Do → In Progress → In Review → Done

Extended (7 statuses):

Backlog → Refined → To Do → In Progress → In Review → QA → Done

With Blocked:

Add a "Blocked" status that sits alongside "In Progress" — use red coloring to make it visually distinct on the board.

To change: Click the Status column header → Edit property → Add/remove/rename Select options.

Sprint Duration

Estimation Scales

Fibonacci (default): 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21

Best for: Most teams. The gaps between numbers force meaningful distinction.

T-shirt sizing: XS, S, M, L, XL

Best for: Teams new to estimation. Convert to numbers for velocity (XS=1, S=2, M=3, L=5, XL=8).

Linear: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Best for: Teams that find Fibonacci too abstract. Simpler but less nuanced.

No estimates (#NoEstimates):

Count stories instead of points. Track "stories completed per sprint" as velocity. Remove the Story Points column entirely.

Adding Custom Properties

Useful Additions for Backlog Items

Useful Additions for Sprints

Integrations

Connecting to GitHub/GitLab

While this template is standalone, you can enhance it:

1. Use Notion's GitHub integration to embed PR links

2. Add a "PR Link" URL property to backlog items

3. Use Notion's API + GitHub Actions to auto-update item status when PRs merge

Connecting to Slack

1. Use Notion's Slack integration for database change notifications

2. Set up a Slack reminder that links to the standup database each morning

3. Create a Slack workflow that posts the sprint board link at standup time

Connecting to Calendar

1. Use the Sprint Calendar view's "Copy link" to embed in Google Calendar

2. Set up recurring calendar events for standup, planning, review, and retro

3. Link calendar events to the corresponding Notion pages

Advanced: Custom Formulas

See formulas/FORMULAS.md for all formulas used in this template. You can modify them to suit your needs:

• Change the velocity calculation to use a rolling average instead of per-sprint
• Adjust the sprint health score weights
• Add a "days since last update" formula for stale item detection
• Create a workload balance formula per team member

Archiving Completed Sprints

After a sprint ends:

1. Change the sprint status to "Completed"

2. Ensure all backlog items are either "Done" or moved to the next sprint

3. Create a final velocity history entry with actual numbers

4. The sprint will remain in the database but won't clutter your active views (because your board filters to the current sprint)

Optional cleanup:

• Move completed sprints to an "Archive" section using Notion's page nesting
• Create a "Completed Sprints" view with all finished sprints for historical reference

*This template is a starting point, not a straitjacket. Modify it until it fits your team like a glove.*