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When we talk about Planned VS. Actual, what is the definition of Planned?

Ann Bouvier
Contributor
March 10, 2020

Does planned mean anything brought in to the sprint, before the end of the sprint?  Or does Planned mean work in the sprint at the beginning of the sprint?

Is planned worked date based or rather sprint based?  

If I start a sprint on 1/1 and it is a 2 week sprint, on 1/1 I have 20 story points.

On 1/4 I add 5 more story points (scope creep).  Has the planned now changed from 20 to 25?

That added 5 points is now scope change.

At the end of the sprint I completed all 25 points.  Is my planned versus actual equal?

Just not clear what Planned technically means for calculation purposes.

3 answers

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2 votes
Answer accepted
Tom O'Connor
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
March 11, 2020

Here is great report for tracking planned versus actual. 

  • Planned Velocity = Sum of all Level of Effort Points on stories assigned to the selected team for each sprint on the report. LOE points are entered for stories via the story grid or a new story panel.
  • Actual Velocity = Sum of all Level of Effort Points on accepted stories, for the selected team, for each sprint on the report. LOE points are entered for stories via the story grid or a new story panel.

https://agilecrafthelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004447448-10X-Velocity-by-Team-Trend-

2 votes
Answer accepted
Matt Magee
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
March 11, 2020

In Jira Align, and according to  the 2017 Scrum Guide by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, Planned Velocity is "What can be delivered... in the upcoming Sprint." 

As a platform, Jira Align, baselines the total effort points in the sprint, at the time of sprint start.

Actual Points is the sum of effort points for all stories in the Accepted state, at the time of sprint close. 

While it is not uncommon for teams to adjust, either up or down, the total story points during the sprint, the Actual Points by definition is the sum of the points for all stories in the accepted state at sprint close.

Thus the only time Planned VS. Actual are identical is when the sum of loaded points remains unchanged from sprint start to sprint end and all of those same stories are moved to the accepted state.

1 vote
Answer accepted
Rich Sparks
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
March 11, 2020

It is also very helpful to look at the Scope Change report. Scrum Masters and coaches can use this report to help teams get to a consistent velocity. That shows when teams are getting new work added into their sprints. 

It happens (and the scope change report doesn't mean the same for a kanban team as it does a scrum team), but it is great to see if scope is getting added into the sprint on a regular basis. It is common to see stories get added a day or two after the start date for the sprint, but if you're seeing the story line jump around in a sprint, that's worth digging into.

https://agilecrafthelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003911708-10X-Scope-Changes

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