The art of crafting and achieving the Sprint Goal.
A goal without a plan is just a wish. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
For any Scrum Team, the most important thing is to produce a working increment that is potentially shippable at the end of every cadence.
Unfortunately, many teams fail to understand the importance of the Sprint Goal in the process of producing an increment.
In this article, I will focus on:
1. Importance of the Sprint Goal.
2. Best practices that help us achieve the Sprint Goal.
What is a Sprint Goal?
The Sprint Goal is the single objective for the Sprint. — The Scrum Guide 2020
The most common answers I have heard in my experience are:
1. It is a list of items that are going to be delivered at the end of the Sprint.
2. It is often difficult to club everything that we deliver into one goal, so we don’t have one.
3. Since the requirement keeps changing, we keep informing what will be delivered and do not define a Sprint Goal. The team feels, it is not worth investing time in repeating this activity multiple times.
Importance of the Sprint Goal
The 3 empirical Scrum pillars : Transparency, Inspection and Adaption. — The Scrum Guide 2017/2020
The Sprint Goal is about Transparency. It makes transparent the commitment of the Developers and what to expect from the resulting Increment.
- Developers are accountable for adapting their plan each day toward the Sprint Goal.
Without a defined Sprint Goal, the Developers lack a clear vision of what are they collectively trying to achieve. In the Daily Scrum, rather than focusing on the Sprint Goal, individual goals or tasks are more focused on and will be the target. This diverts the developer’s focus and priority more towards individual tasks or goals. Thus, the risk of not identifying the impediments and endangering the Increment is very high.
For example: We were in a situation when we had to build a product detail page along with other deliverables. A dependent component was delayed and considering the product launch date, the developer did not raise the impediment. Instead, the developer chose to follow up with the dependent team to make sure the feature is in for the release. The outcome disappointed the stakeholders as they were very sad about the missing feature which they were anticipating in the Sprint Review.
It can be argued that in case of a missing Sprint Goal, the Product Owner should ensure to prioritize the feature and communicate to the team, what needs to be in and what can be re-negotiated and rescoped to future iterations. However, it still does not reflect Transparency and the fact that the whole team is responsible for the outcome of the increment.
Even though the Sprint Goal was never optional as per previous versions of the Scrum Guide, In the Scrum Guide 2020 emphasizing the importance of the Sprint Goal, it is now marked as a commitment to the Sprint Backlog. - During the Sprint, no changes are made that would endanger the Sprint Goal
Without the Sprint Goal, any changes in the scope or any adjustments to the existing plan are seen more as the individual’s goals and less in accordance with the Sprint Goal. Thus, having a Sprint Goal provides an opportunity for the Developers to always think in accordance with the Sprint Goal along with their individual tasks. - Sprint Goal’s importance to the Scrum Master and the Product Owner
One of the significant contributions of the Scrum Master is: “Helping the Scrum Team focus on creating high-value Increments”. Similarly, the Product Owner proposes how the product could increase its value and utility in the current Sprint. To do this successfully, the Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Developers need to possess a common understanding of the scope of the Sprint.
For an organization practicing SAFe one of the Agile Release Train events is Product Owner sync. In this meeting, the PO highlights, how the team is progressing towards the product goal or the Program Increment objectives and based on the current progress, assess any scope adjustments that may be required. In this aspect also the progress towards the Sprint Goal is the key input.
Best practices that help us achieve the Sprint Goal.
The driving force or the motivation for any team towards achieving a goal is to understand what they are going to develop, what purpose it is serving, how much time is available.
The answers to these questions enables the Developers to build a feasible plan that enables them to build a successful Increment.
The process : I call it The 3W+1H method.
What? (The expectation)
Why? (The purpose)
When? (The timeline)
How? (The plan)
What
The Product Owner may represent the needs of many stakeholders. — The Scrum Guide 2020
Setting the the right expectation and visualizing the product outcome from stakeholder’s perspective is the prime factor for any successful product development.
The Scrum Master should ensure that the Product Owner guides the team in making them understand, what are the expectations from a particular Product Backlog Item.
Why
Find your WHY and you will find your WAY — John C Maxwell
Self-managed teams always possess the ability to provide the best solution to meet the customer’s needs. For the team to achieve self-management, they need to understand the purpose, what is it that the customer is trying to achieve? Once the team has a clear picture of the purpose and the customer expectations, they will be capable enough to produce an end product that can yield more value than the customer expectations.
For example: In my experience, we collaborated early with PO to understand what the stakeholders are trying to achieve. Based on the inputs, we had to do the feasibility study to see what is practically achievable. To do this, we executed the POCs, which gave us the results and the required metrics to proceed with the plan. All these factors helped us propose the best solution that matches customer expectations. (The factors to decide may vary: Cost-effectiveness, Legal Compliance of the Country or Province, Technical Feasibility, and so on).
When
A dream written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true.- Greg Reid
Project milestone — What makes it the least negotiable and prime factor of every project?
I would like to take an example and demonstrate the importance of a milestone.
Imagine a team putting all of its creativity into producing the best New Year cards but failing to get it to market on time. In this situation, the entire effort is in vain and it leaves a significant psychological damage to the entire team.
To avoid such situations, the Developers should discuss with PO and have a clear understanding of the roadmap to make sure the Sprint Goals are in alignment with the market commitments or the Product Launch.
For example: We in our team have multiple releases in a quarter. To ensure transparency and to avoid impediments that may later endanger the commitment, we have the following checklist in place:
a. What version are each of the commitments targeted for?
b. Branching strategies for every release (We use GIT)
c. External dependencies and their alignment.
d. Documents required for the release.
e. Program Risks that may become an impediment for delivery.
f. Confidence of the team towards achieving the milestone.
Please note: Each delivery of the team should be in adherence to the team’s DOD, following the practices of Scrum Guide and not compromising quality for the sake of releasing the product.
How
Plans are nothing; planning is everything.- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Scrum Guide 2020 (Page no 8) :
Sprint Planning — Topic Three: How will the chosen work get done?
the Developers plan the work necessary to create an Increment that meets the Definition of Done.
The 3W+1H method guides the Developers like the Polaris star guides mariners, helping them collaborate and draft a plan of execution. After taking all the above and any other applicable aspects required to turn the Product Backlog Item into a working Increment, the Scrum Team collectively agrees and works towards the execution.
Note: All these activities were part of the Sprint Planning meeting and no additional meetings were organized.
In this entire process:
a. The Product Owner is committed to getting the required clarification throughout the development phase.
b. The Scrum Master is committed to ensuring the team executes inside the boundaries of the Scrum and helps the team in resolving any impediments.
Endnote
Defining the Sprint Goal does not ensure a successful Increment.
It serves as a compass, showing the right direction for the Scrum Team. There may be several other challenges faced by the team’s having a Sprint Goal and these can only be solved by continuous Inspection and Adaptation. In this article, I have tried to bring in my real-life learnings and experience and provide practical examples.
Let me know if this article helped you and share your valuable feedback so that I can bring in similar content.
