Practice: Is this a good Sprint Goal?

Posted on by Oliver

The Sprint Goal is an essential part of the Sprint in Scrum. But why is that and how can I recognize a good Sprint Goal?

Why do we need a Sprint Goal?

  • Scrum
    It is “[…] the single objective for the Sprint.” [Schwaber&Sutherland].
  • Flexibility
    The Sprint Goal allows us to not be forced to do the “[…] exact work needed to achieve it.”[Schwaber&Sutherland].
  • Coherence
    The Goal is “[…] encouraging the Scrum Team to work together […]” [Schwaber&Sutherland].
  • Focus
    The Sprint Goal provides a clear focus for time and energy within the Sprint.
  • Direction
    It shows what destination to reach.
  • Clarity
    The Goal helps to clarify what we want to achieve and what we need to do to achieve it.
  • Priority
    A shared sprint goal facilitates prioritisation: What stories should we focus working on?

What makes a good Sprint Goal?

  • At first: Every good goal has to be SMART:
    • Specific
      A good Sprint Goal should be specific enough to provide direction, but not so specific that it limits creativity or innovation.
    • Measurable
      The whole team should be sure to knwo exactly when the goal is achieved. Within the Sprint maybe there is a way to incrementally observe the progress on the goal – maybe by completing stories the Sprint Goal depends on.
    • Agreed Upon
      Everyone in the team knows, to what they are aiming to achieve during the Sprint. So the goal is clear to everyone.
    • Realistic
      The Sprint Goal must not be too large to achieve during the Sprint (attainable). And the Team has to have all abilities required to achieving the goal without external support (dependencies).
    • Time-Bound
      “As sprints are time-boxed iterations, every sprint goal is naturally time-bound” [Pichler]: It has to be achieved within the sprint.
  • Then: I’d like to add some important aspects:
    • Purpose
      Effective Sprint Goals state what you want to accomplish during your Sprint and why doing so is valuable: Achieving the goal should really make a difference.
    • Sides with the team
      A Sprint Goal should be something that the team can get behind and work towards together.
    • Value
      It considers the user or business: An effective Sprint Goal creates customer value or positively impacts the business.
    • Outcome
      A Sprint Goal should specify a clear outcome (no output) that the team is working towards. Misdirected goals tend to focus on activities and outputs (“pseudo-Sprint Goals” [Pichler]).
    • BHAG: “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”
      A good Sprint Goal should be ambitious and challenging, but not so much that it is impossible to achieve.
    • Visible
      Last but not least: The team has to see the Sprint Goal every day, talk about at least in the Daily so no one loses sight of it. No one can achieve a secret.

Questions:

I’ve got Features/Epics/Titles (Story Map)/…: Why do I need a Sprint Goal?
In short: You need a sprint goal to provide Focus during Sprint. Sometimes there might be a feature fitting a sprint: Just take it as your sprint goal if the team decides. In most cases your Epic, or other item above Story-Level, might be to big to fit a Sprint.

Isn’t the implementation of all stories in the sprint the sprint goal?
In short: No.
A sprint goal like “All stories of the sprint are done” would in its way violate the principle of flexibility. A central benefit of the sprint goal would be lost. As a result, we would no longer have a chance to focus on what is most important, because suddenly all stories would be important.
Even declaring only one set of stories as sprint goal, e.g. all stories of a certain feature/epic/… is not optimal: the motivational aspect of the purpose is missing. What is the common denominator of only this set of stories? Why is it important and a real makes a difference for our stakeholders that we have exactly this set at the end of the sprint?

We can’t work together on Sprint content: Do we need a sprint goal?
In short: Yes.
In this actual state, it is difficult to find an overarching Sprint goal. However, that is not even necessary and not defined anywhere: Not every story of the sprint has to be part of the sprint goal!
Even if only one story is the most important result of the sprint, it can be the sprint goal. Conversely, this means: If this “target story” needs support, other team members put their issues on hold and support this one story.
In the target state, team members can support each other, at least rudimentarily. Thought of in the image of the letter “T”, team members have specialized knowledge, but share the basic knowledge most needed in the team (T-shaped). Thus, all team members can at least partially work on or support the common sprint goal.

Feedback
If you have any comments, ideas, suggestions or other feedback about this article, feel free to send me an email at Feedback[at]scrummastersmind.com.

Sources

  • [Schwaber&Sutherland]: “The Scrum Guide” by Ken Schwaber & Jeff Sutherland, https://scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v2020/2020-Scrum-Guide-US.pdf, 11/20, downloaded at 22.03.23
  • [Ockerman]: “7 Tips for Setting More Effective Goals” by Stephanie Ockerman, https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/7-tips-setting-more-effective-goals, 12.01.2023, downloaded at 22.03.23
  • [Wolpers], “Nine Sprint Goal Principles to Get Your Scrum Team Going” by “Stefan Wolpers”, https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/nine-sprint-goal-principles-get-your-scrum-team-going, 11.10.22, downloaded at 22.03.23
  • [Pichler], “Creating Effective Sprint Goals” by Roman Pichler, https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/effective-sprint-goals/, 11.12.12, downloaded at 22.03.23