Can Scrum Teams Add New Work Mid-Sprint?
In real Scrum practice, it’s very common for Scrum Teams to get requests for additional work during their Sprint. These types of situations typically presents an ongoing challenges for the team as they can cause confusion and Sprint goals not being met.
On paper, the Scrum Guide clearly mentions that within a Sprint, there should not be any changes that can affect the Sprint Goal. But in reality, requests for mid-Sprint changes happen a lot, often to the point where they hold the team back from reaching any of their goals.
Common Beliefs
For these situation, there’s typically opposing sides of beliefs. Some people believe that as an agile team, Scrum Teams need to be responsive enough to allow any changes to the scope of their work. While others feel that for Scrum Teams to be successful in completing their work, the Sprint Backlog should never change.
Reality check
In the real world, companies and their teams face high level of competitions as a result of constant market changes. To stay ahead of competitors, businesses need to constantly change how they work to win the hearts of customers and keep their business running.
Given this reality, it’s safe to say that requests for changes will always happen since no one has control over where the market is headed. However, this doesn’t mean you should always say yes to every single piece of new work that comes in. The key is knowing which new work to take on, and which ones to pass on.
What you can do about it
Whenever new pieces of work come mid-Sprint, you don’t need to add them to your backlog straight away. Instead, have a structured discussion with your product owner about the importance and impact of the new changes.
Here’s a productive way to frame your discussions to help you make informed decision:
Why are the new pieces of work important, and are they absolutely needed to achieve the Sprint goal?
If the answer is no - consider doing them next Sprint
If the answer is yes - go on to ask,
What’s the impact of taking the extra work?
Can your team fit the new work into their current backlog?
Does your team need to swap any existing pieces of work to make room for the new ones?
Are there any deadlines or committed delivery dates that will need to be adjusted because of the changes?
Lastly, does everyone accept the impact of the changes?
The impact must be agreed by the whole team, especially the Product Owner and Developers
Key takeaways
Considering businesses’ need to stay ahead, your Scrum Team should anticipate mid-Sprint changes, while having the ability to determine which ones they should take on, or pass on.
Whenever new pieces of work come in, the team needs to have proper discussion to agree on the scope and impact of the changes.
It’s fair to assume that any changes to the scope of the Sprint will affect the Sprint’s momentum.
Depending on the size of the changes, you can expect reduced productivity as the team assess and adjust to accommodate the changes.
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