Running effective and successful engineering sprints can define whether or not your organization is able to ship high-quality software fast and often. It also gives teams more flexibility and the ability to quickly change something that is not working or, on the other hand, to iterate on a successful technology.
Source: DevOps – What is the purpose of sprints? We break work into sprints so we can more easily monitor, estimate and predict what we want to ship and when. Over the years, engineering teams have gotten used to moving quickly from one sprint to the next, but I think it’s important to be more thoughtful in how we plan and execute engineering sprints.
After almost 20 years as an engineer, manager and as a CTO, I have found there are several best practices that improve the sprints that are part of my team’s software development life cycle.
Engineering Sprint Planning
When planning a sprint, there are several things to keep in mind.
1. Make Sure the Work Aligns with Business Priorities
There are always a number of elements an engineering team can focus on during any given sprint. It’s fairly easy to lose sight of the business’ end goal. Make sure to gut-check to make sure that the sprint goals align with current business priorities.
2. Ensure the Workload is Balanced From the Start
This seems like an obvious statement, but make sure team members have equivalent workloads so you avoid burnout. It is also important to understand how different engineers on the team work—some people work best by selecting their own tasks with items that are unassigned, some pick up unfinished tasks as they finish others and some prefer to be assigned certain tasks because they have specialized skills.
3. Don’t Underestimate the Time That Interruptions/Additions Take
Along the same lines as the above, don’t overlook this for several reasons. Without adequate, data-driven insight into the actual state of each team member’s workload, it is almost impossible to gauge what’s happening in real-time. While business-critical sprints are assumed to take priority, side projects, Slack interruptions and meetings can easily consume an engineer’s day. Make sure to proactively check that each member has enough true deep work time without becoming burned out.
4. Don’t Underestimate the Time it Takes to get Things to a Done State
Sometimes engineering teams only look at the development stage, but the full cycle required for the software to get to the end user might take longer. Allotting the right amount of time to get the job done across all phases of development will help avoid unexpected surprises.
When You Get to Mid-Sprint
1. Monitor Unplanned Work
Initial planning doesn’t necessarily take into account the bugs and fire drills that will likely arise after the sprint starts. Pay close attention to any mid-sprint additions and adjust as necessary. There may be team members who have cleared their sprint queue and are capable of taking on this work, but being aware of team members’ workloads at every stage is critical.
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