Scrum Sprint Planning Anti-Patterns (5) – Imposed Forecast (Hands-on Agile Webinar #5)

START FROM EPISODE #1:

There is no shortage of Scrum anti-patterns, impeding your team’s ability to deliver value to your customers. This Hands-on Agile mini-series covers Scrum’s sprint planning ceremony.

The purpose of the sprint planning is to align the development team and the product owner. Both need to agree on the shippable product increment of the next sprint. The idea is that the development team’s forecast reflects the product owner’s sprint goal. Also, the team needs to come up with a plan on how to accomplish its commitment.

Easier said than done, it appears.

This Hands-on Agile mini-series addresses 12 common sprint planning anti-patterns. Learn how to keep a simple scrum ceremony useful by avoiding typical mistakes, from pushy POs, toying with the definition of ready to obstructing the future flow by pushing utilization to 110%.

This episode covers the imposed forecast of the scrum team: The sprint forecast is not a team-based decision. Or it is not free from outside influence. (There are several anti-patterns here. For example, an assertive product owner dominates the development team by defining its scope of the forecast. Or a stakeholder points at the team’s previous velocity demanding to take on more user stories. (“We need to fill our free capacity.”) Or the ‘tech lead’ of the development team is making a forecast on behalf of the team.)

HOST: Stefan Wolpers