Process

Teams can then use this velocity metric to determine how many stories they should be able to finish in future sprints. The sprint backlog should contain approximately the same number of story points as the sprint velocity for the team. Since story points may vary per story, it allows teams to fill the sprint backlog with either many small stories, or fewer large stories. The sprint velocity should gradually increase as the scrum team improve their processes, no matter if the story points come from large or small stories.

In addition to velocity, teams must consider story dependencies when creating the sprint backlog. A dependency is a story that must be finished before another story can begin work. For example, an inventory management system must have a way to enter inventory before it can be updated. In this case, the update functionality depends on the entry functionality already being complete. The Scrum team must analyze a project to determine where dependencies are. Dependencies should be incorporated into the sprint backlog of earlier sprints in the project, to allow for more time to complete related functionality.

Besides velocity and dependencies, teams must examine their availability for the sprint. Not all team members are available for every sprint at full capacity. Team members take time of work, they go on vacation, they get sick, or have to miss some time during a sprint for some reason. Because of this time taken from the sprint, the Scrum team must determine whether they should reduce their expected velocity for the sprint. Especially if a holiday falls during a sprint, many team members may expect to be out for a day or more. Without the full team present for the entire duration of the sprint, the team will likely not operate at full capacity. When planning the sprint backlog, teams must take on fewer story points to accommodate this reduction in capacity.

Recommended Further Reading

The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: