From the course: Agile Challenges Weekly Tips

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

The story is not ready for sprint planning

The story is not ready for sprint planning

From the course: Agile Challenges Weekly Tips

Start my 1-month free trial

The story is not ready for sprint planning

“

- As a Scrum Master and coach, I always preview the product backlog before sprint planning. I do this so I know how to prepare for the next day's planning facilitation. On more than one occasion, I've checked out the backlog and recognized that the top priority story isn't ready for planning. How do I know it's not ready? Well, usually there's a couple of signs. Perhaps there are no acceptance criteria. Maybe the story is too big. Sometimes the team's definition of ready hasn't been met. In any case, I know the team can't size or task the story in its current state. So what do I do? Should I call the product owner and tell them to get going on the story? Do I call off sprint planning? No and no. I proceed just as if everything were fine. Seems crazy, doesn't it? It's not really. Sometimes you have to let the team and product owner fail. In order to learn the value of ongoing backlog refinement, sometimes a Scrum Team needs to feel the pain of facing an unrefined story in sprint…

Contents