47
votes
Why do all the teams that I have worked with always finish a sprint without completion of all the stories?
I cannot speak to your particular situation but yes, it is pretty common that not everything is done.
This is in fact a logical consequence of the structure of the team, and you being a developer are ...
- 656
26
votes
Accepted
Is it really necessary to have a four hour meeting in Sprint planning?
I'm going to slightly disagree with Bogdan's answer.
The Scrum Guide does say that:
Sprint Planning is time-boxed to a maximum of eight hours for a one-month Sprint. For shorter Sprints, the event ...
- 19k
22
votes
Accepted
Are all the scrum ceremonies included in the sprint timebox in Scrum?
From the Scrum Guide:
Sprints contain and consist of the Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, the development work, the Sprint Review, and the Sprint Retrospective.
All of the events are included in ...
- 19k
19
votes
Why do all the teams that I have worked with always finish a sprint without completion of all the stories?
In addition to the questions that Daniel poses, I'd pose a different one first:
Is the team achieving its Sprint Goals?
The Sprint Goal for a team following Scrum is the objective that should be met ...
- 19k
18
votes
Accepted
What should we do if there are not enough PBIs to fill a final Sprint in Scrum?
In my team, if the backlog was exhausted, we always had the following to fall back on:
The team can invest time and create a prioritized backlog of technical / architectural debt in your systems
Work ...
- 384
17
votes
Accepted
How to deal with hotfixes keeping the scrum methodology
Jeff Sutherland, the inventor of Scrum, developed a pattern called 'Illegitimus Non Interruptus':
Explicitly allot time for interrupts and do not allow more work than fits within the allotment. If ...
- 731
15
votes
Accepted
Artificial decomposition in Scrum
It looks like Scrum doesn't address this issue in any way?
No, it doesn't.
Scrum is a guide. Although it prescribes stuff, it doesn't prescribe a lot of stuff. This is one of the things that are left ...
- 15k
14
votes
Accepted
How should a Scrum development team track KPIs (key performance indicators) besides sprint commitments?
So this is something I'm dealing with right now in AOL. The constant desire of business to measure seeps even into agile organizations. The key is to make sure you are measuring in a way that does not ...
- 12.5k
14
votes
Sprint is 2 week and 40-stories
If you are following Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide, the Product Owner cannot simply add stories to the Sprint Backlog. The Sprint Backlog, which is created as Sprint Planning as a negotiation ...
- 19k
14
votes
Does it make sense to use Scrum when the dates for sprints constantly change?
In the context of Scrum, a Sprint is a timebox. It has a start and it has an end. Once a Sprint starts, it's timebox is fixed - it will end when it is scheduled to end. There is no concept of ...
- 19k
14
votes
From a sprint planning perspective, is it wrong to build an entire user interface before the API?
Building only a user interface prototype will not usually reduce risk. It may increase risk because it would not deliver a working product. The better approach is usually to do whatever you need to ...
- 6,216
13
votes
Why do all the teams that I have worked with always finish a sprint without completion of all the stories?
It is common, but it isn't right. Here are a few things to consider that may be contributing to this challenge:
Is the team focused on delivering a potentially shippable product increment each sprint ...
- 16.9k
13
votes
Scheduling Sprint Reviews
You are not doing Scrum, by any stretch of the imagination.
Now, there may be a good reason for that. Scrum itself does not always fit all circumstances. But I have to ask - are you not following ...
- 14.8k
12
votes
Daily Stand up Three Question Format a sign of team immaturity?
Briefly:
No, Daily Scrum with Three Questions is not a sign of team immaturity.
Yes, Daily Scrum with Three Questions is valuable, even if you with your team want to switch to Extreme Programming.
...
- 5,301
12
votes
How can story points be "non linear" in relative size
Perhaps a more accurate way to put it would be that story point estimates are imprecise. If you have a 5 and a 3, that may or may not be the same size as an 8.
To make this less confusing, let's ...
- 16.9k
11
votes
Accepted
Scrum backlog and sprint planning
the backlog is populated by the project manager
Scrum, as it's defined, doesn't have a role called "project manager". There are only three roles - Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developer....
- 19k
11
votes
Accepted
Regarding best practices of Scrum are there any "best weekday" to start/end Sprints?
I have seen almost any day but Monday and Friday, because people want to leave early on Friday (assuming you have flex time) and might come in unpredictably late on Monday if they are contractors that ...
- 8,428
11
votes
Accepted
Is it fine to pick stories in the current sprint which have external dependency?
In Scrum we look to create product increments each Sprint, not simply to do work. The direct solution to your question from the Scrum Guide is that you should have cross-functional team. That is, all ...
- 16.9k
11
votes
Artificial decomposition in Scrum
I know there is an accepted answer, but I find it to have a bit of a trap in it, so I want to provide this answer for another view.
I've been practicing Scrum for about 15 years and I have yet to ...
- 16.9k
10
votes
When it is time to do poker planning - during Story Time or during Sprint Planning
I gave Sergey's answer a vote, solid ideas.
I think Sergey's answer works well at smaller scale, in an Enterprise class program or multi-scrum team program you might have a little more success if ...
- 12.5k
10
votes
Accepted
Better approach to sprint for QA and Dev team
Since you're doing Scrum, let's look at the guide:
Scrum recognizes no sub-teams in the Development Team, regardless of particular domains that need to be addressed like testing or business analysis; ...
- 1,255
10
votes
Accepted
Is a good Scrum practice to meassure the developer team by the story points completed at the end of the sprint?
TL;DR
Scrum is not intrinsically about doing more work faster, although high-performing teams often do. Like most agile frameworks, Scrum is about doing just enough of the right work.
Measuring the ...
- 49.8k
10
votes
Is it possible to be agile with a highly technical project?
Everything in your question suggests that you are exploring a new problem, not simply creating something you already know exactly how to build. Because waterfall asks you to create your design ...
- 16.9k
10
votes
Why is it important to only have PBIs completable in a single Sprint?
I want to supply a bit of a purist answer not because it is necessarily more "correct" than some of the others, but to give a different perspective. In many modern implementations of Scrum, ...
- 16.9k
9
votes
Accepted
Daily Stand up Three Question Format a sign of team immaturity?
I'm going to give a slightly different answer to Sergey because I don't think this is a simple question with one right answer, but I'd like to also note that I up-voted his answer because I agree with ...
- 16.9k
9
votes
Accepted
Aiming to finish development of sprint a bit early to give testers time
Answers
Question 1: "Is [finishing early to allow for testing] an acceptable request?"
Answer 1: It is completely reasonable because in Scrum, the Development Team is self-organizing:
No one (not ...
- 795
9
votes
Accepted
Can you change the end date of a sprint?
I'm going to have to agree with half of what Alexey R. said (do not extend), and disagree with the other half (you failed).
Do not extend the Sprint.
Sprints are time-boxed. Part of the reason for ...
- 14.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Should we demo bug fixes in sprint demos?
It reassures your stakeholders that the bug was, in fact, fixed. It might help them understand what was wrong in the first place, and therefore why it was prioritized.
In some cases it could prompt a ...
- 3,535
9
votes
Accepted
Story Points flaw?
The official answer to the problem is:
There is no fixed numbers. If it makes more sense to have a big story be 100 points, go for it. If it makes more sense to have stories that are 1/2 point, use ...
- 8,428
9
votes
Why do all the teams that I have worked with always finish a sprint without completion of all the stories?
If you are using story points and tracking your velocity then this should rarely happen.
When the team fails to complete stories in a sprint then the velocity will tend to compensate for this by ...
- 19.4k
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