Sprint Visibility Check Guide

Overview

• This document is a guide for confirming and assisting with the outlook of sprints at the beginning of sprints and during daily scrums.
• Team development hours are calculated using the calculation sheet for team development hours in each sprint.
  Calculation_sheet_for_team_development_hours_in_each_sprint.xlsx
  Calculation_sheet_for_team_development_hours_in_each_sprint.pdf
• Use the calculated hours to confirm the feasibility of the workload and the daily outlook for each sprint.
• This is effective for teams with the following backgrounds.

Backgrounds and aims

• Cases in which you need to confirm how much time your team has for development when starting a sprint.
• Cases in which scheduled time away, such as time off or training and workshops, needs to be taken into account when determining development hours.
  • This makes it easier for team members to take time off and allocate time for studying.
• Cases in which the development hours for each sprint need to be ascertained before the sprint starts and checked against the planned man-hours needed for backlog to prevent overworking.
  • This document can be used to judge whether work that cannot be completed in a particular sprint should be carried in the next sprint instead.
  • Conversely, it also enables backlog for the next sprint to be cleared early if there are development hours left over.
• Cases in which it is necessary to determine whether the team can confidently start and finish a sprint based on man-hours.

How to use this sheet

• 1. Open the calculation sheet for team development hours in each sprint.
     Calculation_sheet_for_team_development_hours_in_each_sprint.xlsx
     Calculation_sheet_for_team_development_hours_in_each_sprint.pdf
  2. Use the calculation sheet for team development hours in each sprint to calculate the team’s development hours.
  3. Write the names of each member of the development team. (Add more columns if there are not enough. Indicating a scrum master (“SM”) is optional.)
  4. Set the development hours per day (the default is 5.0h).
  5. Fill out the “Regular events/meetings” column and enter the expected hours. (Use a minus sign when entering this time.)
  6. Enter losses of working time for each member in the top half of each row.(use a minus sign when entering this time.)
  7. Enter a “-” in the bottom half of the row if a team member is not working on a particular day.
  8. After entering this information, confirm the total development hours and the development hours left over each day.

When to use this document

• After completion of the second phase of sprint planning (planning and decomposing task)
  • Check the team’s total development hours against the planned man-hours for the sprint to judge whether the workload is feasible.
• Daily scrums
  • Check the team’s remaining development hours against the remaining tasks (total remaining working hours) for the sprint to confirm the outlook (whether the pace is achievable).
  • This document is particularly effective when used together with a burndown chart.

This document is provided under the international Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license.