How to use Velocity for Sprint Planning
Prerequisite
Be sure to watch my video on Sprint Velocity before you walk through this lesson!
Topics Covered in this Lesson
There are 6 Scrum terms that we will touch on in this lesson.
Introduction
In the example we will walk through today, the Scrum Team runs 2 week Sprints. They are getting ready to start their next Sprint, Sprint 4. Sprint 4 is from Wed Nov 09 through Tue Nov 22.
Sprint
A Sprint is a length of time the team chooses to work on specific tasks. It could be any length of time up to one month. The typical Sprint length or time box is 2 weeks.
Sprint Planning
Sprint Planning is a meeting or Scrum Ceremony where the team plans their Sprint. They will plan what they will work on during their Sprint time-box, which for this Scrum Team is 2 weeks.
When you are in a Sprint Planning session, there are a few questions that the Scrum Team will need to get answers to. Here are 2 of them.
Velocity
We already calculated?Velocity, in a previous lesson, which was 20 Story Points. Therefore the Scrum Team already has their answer to the first question “How much can we do in our Sprint”? The answer is 20 Story Points worth of work.
Now the Scrum Team must answer the second question, “WHAT will we do in our Sprint?” We know it’s 20 Story Points worth of tasks, but WHAT tasks? This is where the Product Backlog comes in.
Product Backlog
Think of the Product Backlog as a living task list. It is everything that the team knows it will have to do at some point. As the Scrum Team learns more, new tasks are added to the Product Backlog and items are constantly updated, deleted, groomed and refined.
Depending on the maturity level of the Scrum Team, an ideal state is that Product Backlog items are in priority order, with the highest priority tasks at the top. Tasks at the top of the Product Backlog have clarity, have been assigned Story Points by the team in a Refinement session and are ready to be worked on in future Sprints. The items at the top of the Product Backlog should, in other words, be Sprint Ready.
So, in the Sprint Planning meeting, the team selects tasks from the Product Backlog until they reach their Velocity.
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Let’s walk through this example together.
In the example above, the Scrum Team selected the top priority stories and they paused with 5 Product Backlog items totaling 19 story points.
They paused because selecting Product Backlog Item 15 would put the Scrum Team at 32 Story Points, which is over their current Velocity of 20 Story Points.
The Scrum Team must discuss and decide what to do and they have plenty of options. Let’s walk through a few.
Select the Next in Line / Exceed Velocity
They can decide to put PBI15 in their next Sprint even though it will mean they will exceed their Velocity of 20 story points. They will need to feel confident they can get this done and commit to making it happen.
Add 1 Story Point / Meet Velocity
Or they can decide to pull in PBI19 because it is only 1 point so they will meet their Velocity of 20 points.
Leave As-Is / Below Velocity
Let’s say one of the Developers on the Scrum Team has a week off during the sprint. They may decide to keep the Sprint at 19 story points or even less to account for the fact that they will not have the full team together during their next Sprint.
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The Scrum Team’s options are limitless as the Velocity is only a benchmark. The team does not have to meet it exactly when planning their next sprint. They can decide whether or not they can commit to more or less than their Velocity. They may consider several factors when making the decision.
Final Decision
Let’s say the Scrum Team decided to select PBI19 to get them to their Velocity of 20.
All of the tasks they selected are removed from the Product Backlog and added to the Sprint Backlog.
Sprint Backlog
The Sprint Backlog is list of tasks that the team commits to working on during the Sprint.
So this is how their Sprint Backlog looks. These are the tasks that the team will work on during Sprint 4 from Nov 09 through Nov 22.
Now that the team is done with their Sprint Backlog, they can come up with a Sprint Goal, assign tasks to team members and start Sprint 4.