Sprint goal
Good day
I am currently working as an intern in an organization using scrum for their product delivery. Beforehand I have studied quite a bit about scrum, reading the guide and a lot of information from scrum.org as well as doing research for my thesis on scrum . So I feel like I have a lot of knowledge on the subject...but of course mainly theoretical...
Now what I have noticed is even in my previous internship and this one is that when a sprint is going on, there is mostly no Sprint goal. A bunch of items from the backlog is put into the sprint and then the team tries to work through as many items as possible and at the end...whatever items are left over are carried over to the next sprint..
Now practically I understand why this is being done because you can’t always have a concrete sprint goal at the end or an increment to produce( even though scrum says we should always have a goal and an increment ). Also not all products being delivered can be broken down into different sprint goals for different sprints.
So I totally understand practically why this is. But I would like to know what the experienced people think about this..Must there always be a goal at the end of the sprint and aren’t there instances where you simply cannot have different goals in each sprint and you simply have to work through backlog items.
I feel like I have to get all my facts straight before saying something about it because i am quite sure they have been working like this for a while with no complaints...
Thanks all
There is little point in sprinting without a Sprint Goal to aim for. It makes the selection of work for that Sprint coherent, and the result more than the sum of its parts. The Sprint Backlog then continues to emerge, in a complex domain, as a forecast of the work needed to meet the Goal.
See "Sprint Goals in Practice": https://sites.google.com/site/wicmitchell/home/sprint-goals-in-practice
A bunch of items from the backlog is put into the sprint and then the team tries to work through as many items as possible and at the end...whatever items are left over are carried over to the next sprint..
@max Pritchard, In the absence of a Sprint Goal, this is a typical situation.
Now practically I understand why this is being done because you can’t always have a concrete sprint goal at the end or an increment to produce( even though scrum says we should always have a goal and an increment ).
This is definitely an opportunity to understand why this is not possible. What value are you getting if you are not able to Inspect & Adapt? "Practically, this can't be done" is usually an excuse to not investigate why something is not possible. If we can identify the root cause, can we change it? what would happen if we change it and how would that affect the way we work?
Must there always be a goal at the end of the sprint and aren’t there instances where you simply cannot have different goals in each sprint and you simply have to work through backlog items.
Yes, the purpose of the Sprint Goal is to provide focus, and therefore every Sprint should have a Sprint Goal. If you can't create a Sprint Goal, I'd be curious to understand why. The Sprint Goal is created at Sprint Planning and the Product Backlog Items are selected based on the Sprint Goal. So, its not at the end of the Sprint, rather it should be there from the beginning of the Sprint.
Hope this helps.
My understanding of the sprint goal is as follows:
Having a sprint goal helps to give focus on the goal of the sprint, but not all work in the sprint has to relate to the goal. It is possible (and probaly needed) to have work in the sprint that has no relation to the goal.
It helps to give focus during the planning; what work is the minimal work required to meet the goal (discussed with the PO)? Are we able to deliver that in one sprint with the other work (e.g. bug fixing, maintenance) that we need to do?
It helps to give focus during the sprint; because every time you pick something up you have to ask: what effect does this have on meeting the sprint goal?
In summary: I think you always need a goal to help with the things mentioned above