Sprint planning at most companies starts with a backlog and a room full of people trying to figure out what fits. The session runs long. Estimates are rough. Stakeholders compete for capacity. Two weeks later, the same conversation repeats.
Jenna Gaudio, Co-President of Vydia / Gamma Distribution and Technology, built a sprint planning process that eliminates most of that friction. Her team arrives at planning day with the scope already negotiated, the architecture already discussed, and capacity already allocated across every part of the company. Planning becomes a confirmation step.
In this Product Excellence clip, Jenna walks through the full sprint cycle her team runs at Vydia, starting with how the backlog is organized and why that structure changes the entire dynamic of sprint planning.
The backlog is not a flat list. Her team categorizes incoming requests from customers, executives, and internal teams into a structured backlog with capacity reserved for each stakeholder group. That structural decision is what makes the pre-sprint negotiation with leadership possible, because every group already has a defined share before anyone sits down to plan.
What happens between that backlog structure and planning day is where the process gets specific. Jenna sequences multiple meetings across the days leading up to planning, each with a different purpose, so that by the time the team commits to a sprint, the unknowns have already been resolved.
The clip also covers how Jenna distributes project leadership during the sprint. On big features, developers and designers carry responsibility alongside the PM in a way that builds management experience into the daily work of the team.
Watch the clip to hear Jenna walk through each stage, including the pre-sprint negotiation sequence and how shared ownership works during execution.
Subscribe to The Product Way on YouTube for Product Excellence clips with product leaders walking through the systems they use to run their teams.
The Product Guy 