Importance of the Sprint Goal in Scrum
When starting a new sprint. One of the most important, but often overlooked activities for the team is the crafting of a (good) Sprint Goal. A well-defined Sprint Goal is the backbone of the sprint planning process and guides the development team on what needs to be achieved during the upcoming sprint. A good Sprint Goal sets the tone for the entire Sprint and helps the team stay focused and aligned towards a shared outcome.
In this post, we will discuss the importance of a good Sprint Goal. I intend to follow this up with other posts outlining some common anti-patterns I have witnessed and give some practical tips on how to navigate around them.
The Sprint Goal as linchpin during the Scrum Events
A Sprint Goal provides a clear and concise objective that the team works towards during the sprint. Ideally, there is only one clear Sprint Goal that the team can swarm around during planning and the sprint execution.
It’s effectively the Sprint Goal that gives the Sprint purpose and direction during all of the sprint events. Let’s look at how the Sprint Goal plays a role in the events as laid out by the Scrum guide.
Planning : When conducting planning in two parts, the first part of the planning process is the last responsible time for formalizing the Sprint Goal. As the goal will be the touchstone in deciding which stories make sense to include in the next sprint over others, the goal should be defined before conducting the rest of the planning activities. As the Sprint Goal forms the basis for the rest of the planning event.
Daily Scrum: The main reason for the Daily Scrum is to allow the team to self-organize towards successfully reaching the Sprint Goal. The main question that should be addressed during the daily is ‘are we on track to reach the goal, and what can we as a team do today to maximize the chance of us reaching the goal. As such, not having a Sprint Goal will make this meeting feel like just another (repetitive) status meeting.
Having a shared Sprint Goal fosters collaboration and focus. It can be a great antidote in situations where everyone just does ‘his/her’ tickets without much regard for overall progress. In essence, it’s the Sprint Goal that gives the Daily Scrum (and the Sprint) a soul.
Sprint : Having a clear Sprint Goal can have a big impact on the smoothness of the Sprint execution. When new information inevitably emerges, the Sprint Goal is the first line of defense against unwanted ‘Scope creep’ and individual loss of focus. It gives every team member a clear tool to check ‘Is this worth doing now? Is this crucial to the Sprint or not?’. Barring a Sprint Goal, people will be much more tempted to accept other requests or lose themselves in ‘polishing/goldplating’ activities resulting in an overall loss of focus. And when overall focus is lost, motivation and effectiveness are at risk.
Review meeting : During the review meeting, the Sprint Goal is used to evaluate the success of the sprint. This means that without a Sprint Goal, there can be no successful sprint. But granted, it is also a great way to avoid a failed sprint. However, grinding away story after story without feeling a sense of collective victory can be very demoralizing in time. Having a well defined Sprint Goal is a prerequisite for enabling this sense of collective achievement.
Retrospective : The role of the Sprint Goal in this meeting may be less obvious. But, given that the goal of this meeting is to evaluate how the team performed during the past sprint and which improvements can be made to the overall performance of the team. It is clear that having a sound and shared basis to evaluate team performance goes a long way.
Another way to frame the intent of the retrospective is : ‘(How well) did we reach the Sprint Goal, and how can we do better in the next sprint?’. There is no way to answer these questions without having a clear goal for the sprint.
Wrapping up
Many teams will struggle with finding a good quality Sprint Goal every time. The advantages of not having one may not seem obvious at first glance, that’s why it’s often dropped from the process. In many cases, this is a mistake as it will (in time) erode motivation as well as collaboration within existing Scrum teams (or seriously hamper collaboration in new teams).
I hope this article has giving you a better understanding of the role(s) the Sprint Goal performs in the Scrum process and why it is an invaluable artifact for effective product development using Scrum.
Come back soon for the next part of this series in which we will take a look at common anti-patterns regarding the Sprint Goal.
