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When sprint includes a decision impacting next tasks, how are next tasks included?

Last post 06:17 pm March 18, 2017 by Ian Mitchell
4 replies
08:14 pm March 17, 2017

08:18 pm March 17, 2017

When there is a project decision as part of a sprint that will lead a team down one of two paths for the end of the sprint, how are sprint tasks included?  Would you include all tasks for both paths, knowing you would be completing one set, not both?  Would you deal with this situation in another way?

This is for hardgoods scrum where the next steps are determined based on lab experimentation.


06:56 am March 18, 2017

Is there a single, clear and agreed Sprint Goal? Are the Development Team satisfied that both paths are achievable, and that the selection of either one would achieve that same Goal?


05:50 pm March 18, 2017

Yes.  The goal would be achieved by either, we will take the one that the experiment indicates will be faster.


06:17 pm March 18, 2017

The simplest and least wasteful thing to do is to only plan the Sprint Backlog as far as the decision point. The team can then replan on a just-in-time basis once the decision is made.

For the purpose of transparency over the work remaining in the Sprint, the team (including the PO) may agree on a high-level assumption for either given scenario.


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