Can I close a Sprint without marking its Stories as Done?

Question

Hi,

I am not allowed to move stories to "Done" status due to internal policies (Stories have to be reviewed by Business, at some future time, and then only they can be marked Done).

This is throwing my Agile metrics off-balance. My Sprint velocity is always 0.

Is it possible to:

1. Set story status to some other status (e.g. "Ready to be marked Done")

2. Map this status to DONE column in scrum-board

3. Close the Sprint without having to move these stories to some other sprint / backlog?

Your response would be highly appreciated,

Thanks

Vishal Biyani_2pr07j · Accepted Answer

@FNU MRINAL

Sprint closure is dependent on the last most column in the scrum board.

If you add the status Ready to be marked Done, then you will be able to close the sprint with correct metrics.

Walter Buggenhout · Accepted Answer

Hi @FNU MRINAL and welcome to the Community!

The short answer is yes. It is technically possible to map any status to any column in a board and - when talking about velocity and completing work in a scrum board, you correctly state that items in the rightmost column of your board at the end of a sprint are the ones that are considered complete.

Obviously, that means the workflow(s) used in your project need to be adjusted. And most likely you will also need a new board (or other view) where the business keeps track of the review work they need to do after your team's delivery work is complete.

When you discuss this change, take some time to properly discuss your overall process with the organisation. If you say your velocity is always 0, that indicates the review process may be quite slow (or your sprint length is really short). See if you can't speed up the review process together with your business stakeholders.

Hope this helps!