Consistently Missing Sprint Commitment

1. Smells

The team consistently misses its sprint goal. Sprint after sprint the team commits to more stories than it can handle.

2. Discussion

3. Causes

• Not tracking velocity
• Not allowing for slack time (vacation days, sick days, meetings etc.)
• Over committing in spite of the evidence provided by the velocity.

4. Consequences

• Management and the Product Owner don't have a good idea when the release will be complete.
• Quality suffers as the team is always trying to squeeze more into an iteration than they could handle.

5. Prevention

6. Example Remedies

• Track velocity and use it as an estimate of capacity during the next Planning meeting.
  • Consider using the average velocity of the last three sprints.
• Examine the consistency and quality of estimates during a Retrospective.
• Remind the team of the effects of over committing during the Planning meeting.
• Allow for slack time during the planning session.

7. Case Studies

Credit: this is based on material from "10 ways to screw up with Scrum and XP" by Henrik Kniberg. Personal Experience: Mark Levison