Within Agile, planning is done continuously. Planning is about working out what to do, and that must come before working out how long it will take.

In this post I would like to present a process that will allow team members to understand the whole sequence of planning from vision to user story.

Level 1, Vision:

Every product needs a vision, a destination postcard that will guide the team towards the goal. The vision also helps to have a keen eye for opportunities, to focus on value (to the user and business) and return on investment (ROI). Every decision is taken with the product vision in mind. This ensures clarity for the development team and increases the chances of success.

Level 2, Roadmap:

This is a long-term product strategic roadmap (from 3 to 6 months max), this can also be explained by de-composing the vision into phases in a logical order. The roadmap will help to see how the product would evolve.

Note that it does not usually make sense to make a plan based on user stories that go further out than three months. Beyond this point, use a road map based on story themes.

Level 3, Plan Releases:

If the roadmap gives the phases, the release plan de-composes each phase into sprints. These sprints are conditioned by the roadmap; market conditions the status of the product. The product backlog consists on more than only features, for example: technical requirements, bugs, defects, spikes, non-functional requirements that should be taken into account.

Backlog refinement is very important, this must be granular and well understood by the whole team.

Level 4, Sprint Planning:

During the sprint planning the team plan and agrees the prioritised product backlog stories they are confident they can complete during the sprint and help them to achieve the sprint goal.

Here are 3 basic steps to create a plan:

1. Understand priorities: Start with the team a conversation about the user stories the product owner would like to get in the next iteration to release.
2. Size the work: 
When the stories are understood, help the team work out what needs to be done to deliver the stories.
3. Agree on the plan: 
Wrap the meeting up by getting agreement on what can realistically be delivered.

Level 5, User Story:

If the team members want to deliver valuable software, they need to go the extra mile to understand both user and business benefits, and user stories help them do that. User stories underpin all the work an Agile team does, they are the basis of plans, development and testing.

The whole point of user stories is to ask questions to better understand what users need and to find ways of breaking requirements down. Break the tasks into smaller pieces so that everyone has a deliverable every day.

User stories are a simple technique that a team can use for understanding their customer through talking about what users need.

The main point is that Vision must drive decisions and User Stories are the means to achieve that vision.