Should we have consistent sprint length?

[Gavin Cheng]

Hi all,

I'm asking because of the situations when you know there will be days left in the sprint but the time is not enough for the next user story. For this kind of situation, we could:

1. add the story. Though you cannot finish, just leave to the next sprint

2. put the story to the next sprint. 

3. adjust the sprint length so you have enough time to finish the story

I'm new to JIRA and Agile. Would love to hear to learn from the experienced. 

Thanks,

Gavin

[Jack Brickey]

There are a lot of good reads out there that will do a better job than this but in brief...

it is best to maintain a steady cadence. 2wks is a common sprint cycle that begins with 1/2d sprint kickoff and planning and 1/2d sprint review as a guideline. The value of doing regular cycles is to develop a velocity that will help you begin to know your teams capabilities and work that can get done within a sprint. This all works to the goal of meeting commitments.

[Gavin Cheng]

Thanks Jack. Appreciate your quick response. Let's say we have 3 user stories that will take 4 days, 3 days and 5 days. How will you plan them into sprints?   

[Jack Brickey]

So depending on your confidence in your estimates which total 12d that would fit well for two people for two weeks with sufficient buffer for unexpected. However, if you have one engineer then you can expect to fall short. I would likely try to break the larger stories down and commit to less. Until you are comfortable with the team’s velocity and success I would likely shoot for 80% utilization.