SimpleScrumTools

Sprints

Sprint planning

Fill a sprint from the backlog, read the warnings, and close the sprint when it ends.

The planning screen

NeedsView view

Open the project. Click Sprint Planning. The page title is the project key followed by Sprint Planning. From the top down, the screen shows:

  • A Product Goal band with the project's Product Goal, or No Product Goal set — every Sprint Goal should be a step toward one.
  • A line for the last error. Every refusal carries a message of its own, and the line shows it. A lost connection reads Could not reach the server. Check your connection and try again.
  • A line for the last warning. It stays until your next drop, To backlog, or one of the buttons that move the sprint from state to state. Close sprint…, New sprint and the Sprint Goal editor leave it where it is, so a stale warning can stay on screen. A refused move leaves its warning beside the error, because the product writes the warning before it sends the move.
  • Two panes side by side. The backlog pane heading reads Product Backlog and a count of the rows it lists. The sprints pane heading reads Sprints and a count of the cards it shows.

Most planning controls are absent for people without Run sprints. They see both panes, the filters and the cards, and they can open an item. On this screen Run sprints counts only from an organization role, from the project's Product Owner role, or from an Allow override. A team role that grants it, such as the seeded Scrum Master, unlocks nothing here. See Roles and permissions.

Two controls do not follow that rule. The project's Product Owner sees Cancel sprint on every expanded card that is not Closed or Cancelled, with or without Run sprints. An item row on a sprint card also stays draggable for everybody. The row itself is the drag source, and there is no separate handle on it. Without Run sprints the product refuses the move with You do not have permission to perform this action.

Click any item row, in either pane, to open the item panel. It is the same panel the Product Backlog uses, but opened from here it has no Epic field. A change saved in the panel reloads both panes. See Backlog items.

The divider

The divider between the panes is named Resize backlog and sprints. Drag it with the mouse. You can also focus it and use the keyboard. Left and Right move it 2%, and 10% with Shift. Home gives the backlog pane 20% of the width, and End gives it 80%. Enter, Space or a double-click collapses the sprints pane, and the same action again restores it.

The default split is 60% backlog and 40% sprints. Every arrow key and every mouse release snaps to 25%, 50% or 75% when the result is within 3% of one. Home and End do not snap. On a snap point, Left and Right alone therefore move nothing at all. Use Shift with the arrow key, or Home, End or the mouse, to leave the point.

Your browser remembers the split for this project. Another browser or a private window starts from the default.

The backlog pane and its filters

NeedsView view

The pane lists the items of every phase in one list. There are no phase tabs here, and no row names its phase. The product orders the rows by backlog order, which each phase counts on its own, so rows from two phases can interleave. To work phase by phase, use the Product Backlog. See The Product Backlog.

By default the pane lists only items that are in no sprint, and hides Done items. Two checkboxes beside the heading widen the list:

  • Show items in sprints also lists items planned into a Scheduled, Plan complete or Active sprint. Each carries a Sprint 3 pill, with its own sprint number. Items in an Ended, Closed or Cancelled sprint never appear in this pane.
  • Show Done also lists Done items.

Each row shows the item's id, its name or Untitled, its size or —, and the pills Draft and Blocked when they apply. A Done row carries no pill of its own, so the Show Done checkbox is the only sign that the list holds Done items. The count in the heading is the number of rows listed. With nothing to list, the pane reads Nothing unplanned. Drop a sprint item here to return it to the backlog.

The sprints pane and its filters

NeedsView view

The pane always shows Scheduled sprints. People with Run sprints see New sprint beside the heading. The filter row Scheduled, plus: has three checkboxes, Plan complete, Active and Ended, and each reveals the sprints in that state. Closed and Cancelled sprints never appear on this screen, and there is no checkbox for them. Cards are in calendar order.

With no sprints at all the pane reads No sprints yet. For people with Run sprints it adds Create the first one; it starts on the next Monday. When the project has sprints but the pane shows no card, it reads Nothing scheduled. Reveal other states above, or create a sprint. A project whose sprints are all Closed or Cancelled reads the same, and no checkbox here reveals them.

The card header reads Sprint 3, or Sprint 3 · name when the sprint has a name. It also shows the team or No team, the size metric, the item count and a status pill. Under them a thin bar holds one segment for each week of the sprint, and the segments take the accent color while the sprint is Active.

Click the header to expand or collapse the card. When the page loads, every card that is not Closed or Cancelled starts expanded. A sprint you create after that arrives collapsed, so click its header to reach its Sprint Goal editor and its buttons. Below the header are the dates and the Sprint Goal, or No Sprint Goal yet — the sprint cannot leave Scheduled without one.

An expanded card shows the Sprint Goal editor, then its items, then its buttons. With no items it reads Nothing planned yet. Drag items in from the backlog. Each item row shows the id, the name, the size, and the pills Done and Blocked when they apply. The Sprints topic describes New sprint and the Sprint Goal editor.

Plan an item into a sprint

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

  1. Find the item in the backlog pane.
  2. Drag the row onto the sprint card, or select the sprint in the row's Plan into… list.

Each drop is one request, and both panes then reload. The item appears in the card. It leaves the backlog pane, unless Show items in sprints is on and the sprint is Scheduled, Plan complete or Active. The card's size metric and item count update. The item's history gets planned the item into Sprint 3, with the sprint's own number.

  • The Plan into… list belongs to backlog-pane rows only. It offers every sprint that is not Closed or Cancelled, even when a filter hides its card, and it offers the sprint the item is already in. The list is absent when there is no such sprint.
  • A drop onto the sprint the item is already in changes nothing. No item moves, and the history gets no line. The warning line can still change, because the product reads the rules before it sends the drop.
  • You can drag an item from one sprint card to another. The warning reads, for example: PROJ-12 was in Sprint 2; it is being moved. The move still happens, and the item's history also gets moved the item out of Sprint 2.
  • To move an item between sprints without a mouse, turn on Show items in sprints. The row returns to the backlog pane with its Plan into… list. An item in an Ended sprint never returns to that pane, so only a drag moves it.
  • You can add an item to an Active sprint. The product does not warn about that.
  • You can drop an item onto an Ended sprint. The product warns, for example: Sprint 3 has ended; work added now was never planned. The item still moves.
  • You plan a Draft item like any other item. Its row in the backlog pane carries the Draft pill, and nothing on this screen refuses it. A row inside a sprint card shows no Draft pill.

Return an item to the backlog

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

  1. Expand the sprint card.
  2. Click To backlog on the item's row, or drag the row onto the backlog pane.

The backlog pane highlights while a row is over it. The item returns to its place in the backlog order, and the card's size metric and item count update. The item's history gets took the item out of Sprint 3. The product clears the person assigned to the item.

The size cap and the Oversized warning

Each card header shows the size metric, for example 32 / 40. The first number is the sum of the sizes of the items in the sprint, and an unsized item counts as 0. The second is the sprint's cap. The cap is the project setting Sprint plan soft cap. The sprint keeps the value the setting held when the product created the sprint. A later change to the setting leaves an existing sprint alone.

The settings grid accepts 1 to 999, and 40 is the default. The setting itself accepts 999999 at most, and the product refuses a larger value. See Project settings.

When the sum exceeds the cap, the size metric turns amber and the dates line gains, for example, · Oversized: 45 against a cap of 40. The card border turns amber too, except on an Active sprint, which keeps its accent border. This warns and nothing more. The product refuses no drop and no status change because of the cap, so an oversized sprint can still reach Plan complete and Active.

Items that wait on other items

When you plan a Blocked item, the product reads the items it waits on. The warning names each one that is not Done and is not yet planned. It also names each one planned into a sprint that starts on or after the target sprint. For example: PROJ-12 waits on PROJ-4, PROJ-9, which are not planned earlier. For one item it reads which is not planned earlier. The move still happens.

The screen joins several warnings from one drop on one line. An item that is Blocked only by an impediment gets no warning here.

Plan complete

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

  1. Expand the Scheduled sprint's card.
  2. Click Plan complete.

The status pill becomes Plan complete, and the card now offers Reopen plan and Activate. The card leaves the default view. Select Plan complete beside Scheduled, plus: to see it. From now on the hourly job starts the sprint once its Monday begins in the team's timezone. Reopen plan returns the sprint to Scheduled, its items stay where they are, and the hourly job then leaves it alone. See Sprints.

Activate

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

  1. Select Plan complete beside Scheduled, plus: to see the card.
  2. Expand the card.
  3. Click Activate.

The status pill becomes Active, and the card offers End sprint. The pane shows the card only when you select Active. The board now follows this sprint. See The board and the Daily Scrum. You can activate before or after the start Monday.

Close a sprint

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

The product closes only an Ended sprint. The hourly job ends a sprint after its final Friday. Nothing moves when a sprint ends, and the items stay in it until you close it. You can also end an Active sprint by hand.

  1. Select Active beside Scheduled, plus:.
  2. Expand the card.
  3. Click End sprint. The sprint ends at that moment, whatever the calendar says.

Then close the sprint.

  1. Select Ended beside Scheduled, plus: to see the card.
  2. Expand the card.
  3. Click Close sprint….
  4. For each unfinished item, keep the pre-set destination or select the other one.
  5. Click the last button, which reads Close sprint or starts with Close and move.

The dialog title reads Close Sprint 3, with the sprint's own number. Its first line reads Every item that is not Done goes somewhere. The choice below is pre-set from the project's setting; change it per item. A table with the columns Item and Goes to lists every item in the sprint that is not Done. Each row offers two destinations, Sprint 4 with the next sprint's number, and Backlog. The table leaves Done items out, and they stay with the sprint.

The pre-set destination is the project setting Unfinished items go to, either Next sprint or Backlog. See Project settings. The Sprint 4 destination names the team's earliest sprint that starts after this one and is not Closed or Cancelled. When the team has no such sprint, Backlog is the only destination, whatever the setting says.

The product itself routes the work to the team's earliest Scheduled, Plan complete or Active sprint after this one. That is the sprint the dialog names, unless the dialog names an Ended sprint. Then the product uses its own choice, and the Ended sprint takes nothing.

Below the table the dialog gives one more sentence. With a next sprint it reads If this sprint is never closed, activating Sprint 4 closes it automatically using the project setting — not acting is also a decision. Without one it reads This team has no later sprint, so everything unfinished returns to the backlog. Create the next sprint first if you want work carried forward.

The confirm button counts what will move, for example Close and move 2: 1 to Sprint 4, 1 to the backlog. While the request runs it reads Closing…. When every item is Done, the table is absent and the button reads Close sprint. Not now, Escape and the × in the dialog corner close the dialog and change nothing. A click outside the dialog does not close it.

After you close the sprint

The dialog closes, and the sprint disappears from this screen, because Closed sprints are never shown here. Each unfinished item appears in the next sprint's card or in the backlog pane. When the next sprint is Plan complete or Active, select its state beside Scheduled, plus: to see the card. Every moved item loses the person assigned to it.

The record of what moved where is in each item's history. Every moved item gets returned the item from Sprint 3 when it closed. An item that goes to the next sprint also gets planned the item into Sprint 4. Each line names who closed the sprint. When the product closed it on its own, the name is SimpleScrumTools.

The activity feed records that the sprint closed, and it names the person and the time. It does not list the items or the counts, so each item's history is the only record of where that item went. See The activity feed.

Done items stay in the closed sprint. The backlog pane leaves them out, even with Show Done on, because they are still in a sprint. Their history keeps the line that planned them, and the Product Backlog lists them when its own Show Done switch is on. See The Product Backlog.