Tips to Create a Great Sprint Goal
Introduction
Creating a great Sprint Goal holds a lot of significance as it keeps the team and its efforts duly focused. It also has the flexibility to create a Done Increment by the end of the Sprint. Setting up good Sprint Goals also gives a lot of clarity and ease in understanding to the team about the impact and purpose of the work they are doing. This helps drive intrinsic motivation in the team and keeps them right on track.
As per the Scrum Guide, the objective of the Scrum Goal must be met by the Sprint through a part of Product Backlog implementation. In a nutshell, creating Sprint Goals guide us as to why an Increment is being built. Here, we bring you a few tips about how to set Sprint Goals.
Tips to Create a Great Sprint Goal:
When creating great Sprint Goals, it is necessary to begin with the identification of challenges and how creating these Sprint Goals can help overcome them. Here, we focus on challenges faced and the tips that can help overcome them and pave the way for creating Sprint Goals.
Challenge and Tip#1- Big Sprint Goal
When there are multiple Sprint Goals to achieve, we are in essence dividing our focus in multiple directions and reducing our flexibility. It is imperative to avoid such a situation. Here are a few reasons that result in such a complicated situation.
- Challenge- Multiple Initiatives or Unrelated Projects- This is the first challenge faced when setting Sprint Goals. When engaged in Sprint Planning and ordering the Product Backlog, both must be considered as the top priority initiative and work cohesion. When too much is crammed in a Sprint, the focus is lost, and it results in context switching making it difficult to emerge as a team.
Tips
- It is necessary to come up with compact and clear Sprint Goals so that the focus of the team does not waver.
- Encompassing every PBI or Product Backlog Item- Many times, the team considers completing every PBI as their goal which is not the right way to go about it. It is necessary to take out some time to set proper Sprint Goals.
Challenge and Tip#2-Vague Sprint Goal
Once we reach the end of the Sprint Goal, find out if the entire team agrees that the Sprint Goal has been achieved. If the team is unable to agree, it means that the Sprint Goal is not clear and is quite vague. The tips that can help in overcoming this challenge are-
Tips
- Ask the question, how to create Sprint Goal and how to know if the same has been achieved. If the answer to these questions varies greatly, it requires further discussion on the Sprint Goal.
- Come up with a measurable Sprint Goal as it will reduce opinions and subjectivity.
- Use a consensus technique during Sprint Planning to confirm the understanding and commitment of everyone to the Sprint Goal. This ensures team ownership of Sprint Goals.
- Avoid ambiguous Sprint Goals.
Challenge and Tip#3-Wavering Focus on The Sprint Goals During the Sprint
It is important to ensure that the team is completely focused on the Sprint Goals during the Sprint. The lack of focus may make it difficult to achieve these goals. Here is how to focus on the goals that can be ensured.
Tips
- High-Visibility- Write the Sprint Goal in large on the Scrum Board. Make it look distinctive by using a border or color so that it stands out.
- Discussion- Encourage the team to talk about Sprint Goal progress in the Daily Scrum. Ask them to give updates about the Sprint Goal and how close they are to achieving it. Make it a daily routine.
- Measurable Sprint Goal- Make it possible for the team to track the achievement of Sprint Goals overtime just like tracking their automated test coverage or velocity. The information thus received must be kept visible allowing the team to think about it. Trends and historical data can also be discussed as the Sprint Retrospective. It is prudent to note here that Sprint Goal is either achieved or not achieved, there is no in-between result or achievement.
Challenge and Tip#4- Meaningless Sprint Goal
It is important that the Sprint Goal decided to serve a specific purpose. This also helps the team know if they are building the Product Increment and some meaningful work is being done. Every team member wants to engage in impactful work as this drives intrinsic motivation. The failure to do so result in meaningless Sprint Goals.
Tips
- User or Business Focused Sprint Goal - Ask questions about what would be achieved upon implementing this feature.
- Testing Business Assumptions Focused and Getting Feedback- Early feedback by the Product Owner help in testing assumptions regarding the value it brings to the users.
- Reduced Risk Focused- Reduce risk by proving a design or technology. If the technology used is not going to serve the needs in terms of scalability, security, or performance, there is time to change direction. A quick change of direction shall help in reducing the cost of change.
Conclusion
Creating Sprint Goals and meeting them shows the achievement of the desired iteration outcome providing a shared goal to the team. Creating Sprint Goal help in creating focus and facilitates teamwork, gives support to priorities, helps in getting relevant feedback makes it easier to run feedback analysis, and supports Stakeholder communication.
Reference
- https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/getting-done-creating-good-sprint-goals
- https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/effective-sprint-goals/
- https://medium.com/the-liberators/examples-of-real-sprint-goals-670f917ba2cd
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