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Sprint

A sprint is a defined, regular iteration of work that enables a development team to produce an increment of potentially deliverable functionality. It is a fixed period of time, usually two to four weeks, during which the team focuses on achieving a specific goal.

In a project in scrum mode, Optera lets you define a sprint. The product>sprint menu displays a list of sprints. There can only be one active sprint. However, you can have several sprints closed or in preparation.

Sprint data​

Sprint name​

When creating a sprint, you'll need to define the sprint name (usually Sprint + a number).

Goal​

You'll also need to define the sprint's goal. This is a clear, concise text that guides the development team through the iteration and serves as a benchmark for evaluating the success of the sprint at its end.

Duration​

You should also indicate the sprint start and end dates. The duration is used to generate the sprint burndown graph.

Effort​

Finally, you'll need to enter the effort in points or hours according to the product's estimation mode. This effort will be used to alert you if you overload your sprint during sprint planning.

Sprint planning​

Once the sprint has been created, you can open the sprint plan to select items from the product backlog and place them in the sprint backlog. Information on the number of items per type and epic is presented in the header. Cumulative estimates and planned effort are displayed at the top of the sprint backlog column. If the planned effort is exceeded, a non-blocking alert is displayed.

Once the sprint backlog is complete, you can activate the sprint. When the sprint is activated, the sprint backlog items are set to to do status and immediately available in the Kanban screen. The sprint and sprint backlog can still be modified if necessary.

End of sprint​

At the end of the sprint, you must close the sprint. All completed sprint backlog elements are set to closed status. The other backlog elements return to the product backlog.

For sub-elements, if they are completed or closed, the parent element will be closed automatically. Otherwise, completed sub-elements are closed, and the others are returned to the product backlog with the parent element.

Retrospective​

At the end of each sprint, a sprint retrospective meeting is held. At this meeting, the development team evaluates its practices, processes and work interactions. The aim is to detect the strengths and weaknesses of the past sprint, identify improvements to be made and implement actions to encourage continuous improvement in future sprints. Optera allows you to keep notes of this session in relation to the sprint. From the sprint list or from the details, an Add Retrospective button opens the page to complete the session notes.

Review​

The sprint review is a meeting held at the end of each sprint. During this meeting, the development team presents the incremental work achieved to stakeholders and customers. To this end, Optera presents the list of backlog items completed during the sprint. The aim is to gather feedback, obtain comments and validate whether the sprint objectives have been met, enabling the product backlog to be adapted and prioritized for subsequent sprints. From the sprint list or from the details, an add review button opens the page for completing session notes.