Avoiding Failed Sprints By Focusing On The Sprint Goal

Understanding the Sprint Goal

The sprint goal represents the objective that the development team aims to achieve by the end of the sprint. It guides the team’s efforts and priorities throughout the sprint. A clear, focused sprint goal helps align the team and prevent scope creep.

The sprint goal should describe the intended outcome rather than the tasks or features to build. For example, a good sprint goal would be “Allow users to easily upload multiple files at once” rather than “Implement bulk upload feature”. This outcome-focused goal gives the flexibility to pivot on solutions if needed.

A common mistake is not spending enough time clarifying and getting alignment on the sprint goal before starting work. Rushing into execution risks misalignment and wasted efforts. The product owner and team lead should collaborate to define a sprint goal that is concrete, achievable within the sprint, and aligned with the product roadmap.

Setting a clear sprint goal is critical for avoiding failed sprints and unnecessary rework. Teams should revisit the goal in standups to realign efforts. If new information emerges that changes priorities, the team can have an informed discussion about revising the goal rather than pressing on with an obsolete aim.

Aligning Team Efforts Towards the Goal

With a clear sprint goal in place, teams must align their efforts towards achieving the goal. All stories and tasks within the sprint backlog should map back to fulfilling the goal.

In sprint planning, the team should review each story or task and ask “How does this help us achieve our sprint goal?”. Any stories that do not tie back to the goal may indicate scope creep or misalignment. These should be clarified or deferred to a later sprint.

During execution, the team should reference the sprint goal frequently. In standups, members can report on their progress, blockers, and next steps towards the goal. The scrum master can facilitate this alignment by relating discussion topics back to the goal.

If new stories emerge mid-sprint, they should also be tested against the sprint goal. Introducing off-target stories increases risk of failure. By keeping a tight focus on the existing goal, teams avoid diluting their efforts across disparate aims. Saying “no” to out-of-scope work protects the sprint.

Constant alignment to the clear sprint goal compresses execution timelines, reduces rework, and ultimately leads to more successful sprints.

Managing Scope Creep

Scope creep refers to uncontrolled changes in a project that were not part of the original plan. In agile sprints, scope creep is the enemy – it derails focus from the sprint goal and risks the team failing to deliver any goal at all.

Scope creep enters sprints in various ways – defects uncovered mid-test lead to emergency bug fixes, team members take on out-of-scope stories without consulting the product owner, stakeholders make last-minute requests for new features. Any new work introduced needs to be carefully weighed against the sprint goal before agreeing to take it on. Nine times out of ten, it should be pushed to a later sprint.

The product owner serves as the gatekeeper to combat scope creep. They own the prioritized product roadmap and can determine whether newly surfaced work takes priority over achieving the current sprint goal. Bringing emergent bugs, stories, or features to the product owner and team for open discussion is crucial.

When faced with pressing scope changes mid-sprint, the team should also reexamine the sprint goal itself. Is this still the right goal based on new info? Some examples where revising the goal alignment may be beneficial:
– Key features dependent on the goal are discovered to require more work than feasible within one sprint
– Business priorities have changed based on external factors
– Major defects have surfaced that will significantly delay delivering planned functionality

In these cases, there is no blame to revert scope changes – protecting the integrity of the sprint takes precedence.

Focusing on Priority Features

While unexpected scope changes should be minimized, savvy product owners also realise they must ruthlessly prioritize planned stories and features aligned to the sprint goal. This ensures the team focuses their best efforts on the work with biggest impact and minimizes distractions from “nice-to-have” features.

During sprint planning, the team should work with the product owner to identify 2-3 high-impact features or functionalities central for achieving the goal. These priority stories should receive special attention from both a technical perspective and a user experience perspective.

From a technical lens, the team should investigate priority features in sprint pre-work to surface any complexities or dependencies early. Special care should be taken in design and implementation reviews for these items.

From a UX perspective, effort should be made to gather early user feedback or usability tests on mockups. Priority features should feel polished and intuitive in the delivered product.

Focusing extra effort on priority features helps avoid situations where lesser critical items drag out and prevent delivering a viable product increment. Even if certain lower priority backlog items remain unfinished, completing priority features aligned to the goal signifies a successful sprint.

Proactively concentrating capacity on priority features gives the product owner confidence that the essence of the goal will be achieved even if peripheral items get cut.

Tracking Progress Daily

Agile teams rely on fast feedback loops both within sprints and between sprints to stay aligned on status. Tracking progress daily through rituals like standups gives visibility where goals are advancing as expected or veering off track.

In standup meetings, each member reports on their personal progress over the past day, surfacing any roadblocks. The scrum master should relate these updates back to the sprint goal and current trajectory. Example standup progress checks related to the goal include:

– How many remaining story points are on track for completion this sprint?
– Are priority stories progressing faster or slower than planned? Why?
– What emerging risks or dependencies might impact achieving our goal?

Standups also provide a cadence to course correct in real time if progress stalls or scope creep emerges. Early attention to delays smoothes out issues before they threaten the goal.

In addition to daily standups, burndown charts visually capture progress during the sprint. Tracking the rate of story point completion offers insight into whether the current scope remains feasible. Sudden upward turns signal stories taking longer than expected. Providing full transparency through rituals and artifacts like burndown charts builds accountability within the team to uphold their sprint commitments.

Adjusting Course as Needed

Despite best efforts staying laser focused on the sprint goal, unexpected impediments still arise. Business priorities shift, technical hurdles take longer to solve than planned, underestimated stories consume bandwidth. Such miscalculations happen, but adjusting course quickly counteracts these pivots.

First, teams should reexamine if the current sprint goal still appears achievable within the sprint timeframe based on known status. The product owner may decide some scope reduction is required to deliver a viable increment focused on revised “must-have” priorities. These adjustments stay aligned to the goal while scaling back peripheral items.

If fresh obstacles indicate even the revised goal sits at significant risk, the next option requires cancelling the sprint altogether. Stopping a challenged sprint detaches the team from previous commitments so they can restart fresh work towards a new goal. Cancelling sprints due to unforeseen impediments requires humility but prevents further wasted efforts.

Depending on circumstances, cancelled sprints might entail:

– Planning a brand new sprint with a distinct goal after canceling mid-flight
– Ending the sprint early and starting the next sprint ahead of schedule

In either case, cancellations serve as important feedback loops at the team and product levels. Root causes should be discussed openly to prevent recurrence. Common sources of sprint cancellations include lack of alignment on goal details during planning or inadequate pre-work unpacking complexity of stories.

While necessary at times, frequent cancelled sprints signal dysfunction at the team or product level. They can erode confidence from business partners and slow overall progress. Analyzing the patterns behind cancellations and adjusting team habits between sprints Tesolves underlying issues.

Celebrating Overall Contributions

Amidst the intense drive towards achieving the sprint goal, team morale and energy also impacts likelihood of success. Taking time to celebrate wins along the journey sustains positivity even in challenging sprints.

Examples of milestones worth collective acknowledgement include finishing foundational system architecture, positive user testing results, fixing tormenting bugs. Beyond technical accomplishments, shoutouts for team members who put in extra effort or mentor their peers also improves environment.

Sometimes sprints close with the goal met but unpolished edges remain on peripheral stories. Here especially, focusing some closing discussions around appreciating group contributions tempers these letdowns. Rather than only critiquing shortcomings, take time to contextualize achievements made despite constraints. Discuss what went well and show gratitude for each person’s unique inputs.

Closing sprints on a grateful note, regardless of full feature completion, incentivizes engagement in future work. Especially after taxing sprints, resetting morale lays groundwork for renewed focus on the next goal.