You might be thinking, what is a project scope document? And do I really need one?

The short answer is: a project scope document is essential to the success of any project, and yes, you definitely need one.

A project scope document is a living document that outlines the scope of a project. It defines what a project is, what it will accomplish, and what deliverables you can expect at the end.

A well-crafted scope document can mean the difference between a project that comes in on time and on budget and one that spirals out of control.

In this post, we’ll take a close look at what a project scope document is, why it matters, and how you can create one for your next project.

Project Scope Document defined…

A project scope document is essentially a roadmap for your project.

It outlines what you’ll be working on, what deliverables you’ll be expected to produce, and what milestones need to be met along the way. In short, it sets expectations for everyone involved in the project so that there are no surprises down the road.

5 Benefits of a Project Scope Document

There are plenty of good reasons to create a scope document for your project, but here are five of the most important benefits:

1. A project scope document can help you win over stakeholders.

If you’re trying to get buy-in for your project from upper management or other key stakeholders, a well-crafted scope document can be a powerful tool.

By clearly outlining the goals, deliverables, and timeline for your project, you can show decision-makers that you’ve thought through every aspect of the project and that you’re confident you can deliver on your promises.

2. A project scope document can keep your team focused.

When you’re working on a large project with multiple team members, it can be easy to get off track.

A good scope document can help keep everyone focused on the task at hand by clearly defining what needs to be done and when it needs to be done.

3. A project scope document can help you avoid scope creep.

One of the most common problems faced by project managers is scope creep, which is when the scope of a project gradually expands beyond its original boundaries.

A well-defined scope document can help prevent scope creep by setting clear boundaries for what can and cannot be included in the project.

4. A project scope document can help you manage expectations.

If you’re working with an external client or partner, a scope document can be a helpful way to manage expectations.

By outlining the specific deliverables you’ll be responsible for, you can avoid misunderstandings down the road.

5. A project scope document can save you time and money.

By clearly defining the goals, deliverables, and timeline for your project, you can avoid wasting time and money on activities that are outside the scope of the project.

In other words, a good scope document can help you stay focused and on budget.

Project Scope Vs. Statement of Work

Let’s take a moment to clear up any confusion about the difference between a project scope and a Statement of Work (SOW).

A project scope is a high-level overview of the work that needs to be done. It’s typically created at the beginning of a project and serves as a roadmap for the project manager and team.

A Statement of Work, on the other hand, is a more detailed document that outlines the specific deliverables, milestones, and timeline for a project. It’s typically created after the project scope has been approved and serves as a contract between the client and the vendor.

Now that we’ve clarified the difference between a project scope and a Statement of Work, let’s take a look at how to create a project scope document.

What to Include in Your Project Scope Document

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of creating a scope document, let’s take a look at what you need to include in yours.

Every project is different, so there’s no one-size-fits-all template for creating a scope document. However, there are certain elements that should be included in every scope document.

Here are some of the most important things to include:

1. Problem Statement

It’s not an overstatement to say that every project exists to solve a problem. Whether you’re developing a new product or launching a marketing campaign, your project should be focused on solving a specific problem.

Your scope document should begin with a clear statement of the problem you’re trying to solve. This is often called the “business case.” Essentially, you need to articulate why this project is necessary and what benefits it will bring.

2. Goals and Objectives

After you’ve stated the problem that your project will solve, you need to define the goals and objectives of the project. What are you hoping to achieve? What are your specific goals?

Be as specific as possible when defining the goals and objectives of your project. This will make it easier to measure the success of the project later on.

3. Deliverables

Next, you’ll need to identify the specific deliverables for your project.

A deliverable is any tangible output that your project produces. It could be a digital product, like a new software application, or it could be an intangible service, like a marketing campaign, or even something physical, like a new piece of equipment.

The important thing is that your deliverables are specific and measurable. This will make it easier to assess whether or not your project was successful.

PRO-TIP: For each deliverable, you should include a brief description, as well as any associated deadlines.

4. Timeline

In addition to identifying the deliverables for your project, you’ll also need to establish a timeline for completing those deliverables.

Your timeline should include specific milestones for each stage of the project, as well as target dates for completing each deliverable. Remember to be realistic when creating your timeline. Otherwise, you risk setting yourself up for failure.

5. Budget

This is obvious, but you’ll need to establish a budget for your project.

Your budget should include all of the costs associated with completing the project, including labor, materials, and overhead.

Once again, it’s important to be realistic when creating your budget. Otherwise, you could find yourself in financial trouble down the road.

6. Stakeholders

You’ll also need to identify all of the stakeholders for your project. A stakeholder is any individual or organization that has a vested interest in the success or failure of your project.

Some common examples of project stakeholders include:

• The client or customer
• The sponsor
• The project manager
• The project team
• The executive sponsor
• External vendors

It’s important to identify all of the stakeholders for your project because they will all need to be kept up-to-date on the progress of the project. In addition, you may need their input at various stages of the project.

7. Assumptions and risks

Also, you’ll need to identify any assumptions or risks associated with your project.

An assumption is something that is taken for granted. For example, you may assume that the project team will have the necessary skills to complete the project.

A risk is anything that could potentially jeopardize the success of your project. For example, you may be at risk of going over budget if the project takes longer than expected to complete.

By identifying the assumptions and risks associated with your project, you can develop contingency plans to mitigate those risks.

8. Approval Process

Last but not least, you’ll need to establish an approval process for your project.

This is the process that will be used to approve or reject changes to the scope of your project. It’s important to have a well-defined approval process in place to avoid scope creep.

The approval process should include the following steps:

• Submit a change request: Anytime someone wants to make a change to the scope of the project, they must submit a change request.
• Review the change request: The change request will then be reviewed by the project manager and other relevant stakeholders.
• Approve or reject the change request: Once the change request has been reviewed, it will be either approved or rejected.
• Update the project scope document: If the change request is approved, the project scope document will be updated to reflect the changes.

Now that we’ve gone over what should be included in your scope document, let’s take a look at how you can put it all together.

Putting Your Scope Document Together

The best way to put together your scope document is to use a modular approach.

Modular = dividing the work into manageable parts or modules.

This approach will allow you to break down the scope of your project into smaller, more manageable pieces. As a result, it will be easier to make changes to your scope document as the project progresses.

Start by writing each section of your scope—problem statement, goals and objectives, deliverables, etc.—as its own standalone section .

Then, once you have all of your individual sections written out, start putting them together into a cohesive whole.

Here’s an overview of how each section should flow together:

1. Introduction
2. Problem statement
3. Goals and objectives
4. Deliverables
5. Budget
6. Stakeholders
7. Assumptions and risks
8. Approval process
9. Conclusion
10. Appendix (optional)

When writing your individual sections, be sure to use clear and concise language.

Remember, the goal of your scope document is to communicate the key details of your project to your team and stakeholders. Therefore, it’s important that everyone is on the same page from the start.

Take a step back and ask yourself if the data you’re including is really essential to the project.

If it’s not, then leave it out. The last thing you want is for your scope document to be so long and detailed that no one bothers to read it.

Every project manager knows that “things” are going to happen, regardless.

A project consists of many moving parts. It’s about building something new, or establishing a new process, and operates within the constraints of time, money, and resources. Plus, it requires coordinating a checkerboard of activities.

And so snafus, unforeseen occurrences, problems, issues, and even disasters are bound to occur.

From time to time, this may feel discouraging to project managers. It’s as though their job is about facing inevitable storms head on, day-in and day-out.

Wouldn’t it be lovely, rather, to breeze through issues and storm clouds at a nice clip, with the wind at your back?

Believe it or not, there is a way. It’s all about taking the right approach to risks and issues.

Want to understand how? In this post, we’re taking a careful look at risks and issues, and exploring how managing both is key to navigating all of a project’s moving parts with ease.

What’s the Difference Between a Risk and an Issue?

Risks and issues sound almost like the same thing. While in fact, they differ significantly. Let’s define each term, then look at some examples.

Risk: A Definition

A risk is an event that hasn’t taken place.

The standard project management definition says: “A risk is the probability of occurrence of a specific event that affects the pursuit of objectives. Risks are not negative by definition. In project management, opportunities are also considered risks.”

With a risk, the specific event may or may not take place. The event’s impact and the probability of it occurring, however, is significant enough that it merits attention. The event would impact the project’s constraints, or the deliverable, either for better or for worse.

Simply put, a risk is uncertainty that matters.

Examples of Risks

Risks vary depending on the nature of the project. Every project faces the risk of losing skilled team members. In a cybersecurity company, viruses pose a serious risk. In construction, inclement weather that stalls a project would significantly impact the timeline. 

On the flip side, projects face positive risks as well. These risks might include the development of a new technology that would save the project time and money, or the addition of a skilled expert to assist with creating deliverables. 

Issue: A Definition

An issue is a risk that has occurred, which the team is dealing with in the present.

Here is the standard project management definition for issue: “Anything that can cause problems for a project. The term typically refers to major problems that cannot be tackled by the project team on their own.”

Issues are exclusively a manifestation of negative risks. In order to resolve or mitigate issues, they require immediate action.

Simply put, issues are certainties that matter.

Examples of Issues

Issues vary depending on the project. Every project may face the issue of employees quitting during the project’s execution. An issue faced by a cybersecurity company may be a virus attacking one of its servers. An issue faced by a construction project might be the delay of materials that forces a project to stop mid-track.

Similarities and Differences Between Issues and Risks

Both risks and issues impact the timeline, cost, scope and quality of a project. Their significance depends on how they impact a project’s constraints.

However, issues have already occurred, and risks may or may not occur. Additionally, issues always impact the project negatively, while risks may impact the project both negatively and positively.

How to Mitigate Issues with a Risk Management Plan

Every project faces issues, as discussed. Anticipating issues lessens their severity and may even avert some altogether. This “anticipation” is known as a risk management plan.

A risk management plan requires buy-in. To many project managers, it doesn’t make sense to spend time planning for events that may not occur. They’d just as soon deal with each issue as it transpires. Once a project manager appreciates that anticipating issues ultimately saves time, money and resources, they are ready to create a risk management plan.

A risk management plan analyzes a project at the onset, and anticipates all possible occurrences, both positive and negative. The plan also considers the likelihood of each occurrence. For example, a winter construction project would anticipate inclement weather, and place a high probability on this occurrence.

Here are a few components of a comprehensive risk management plan.

Know Your Environment

A project’s risks are determined by its environment. And so identifying all of a project’s assets, stakeholders, deliverables and constraints is the first step in a risk management plan.

This stage is about answering the question: “What stands to be lost here?” and then identifying the threats and vulnerabilities of each asset.

Measure Your Risk Appetite

An organization also looks to its culture and mission statement to determine how to handle risk. Depending on its level of tolerance, some companies take on a lot of risk, while others choose to transfer risk elsewhere.

Put a Plan in Place

When the vulnerabilities and threats for each asset have been identified, the next step is to determine how to handle them. Risks can either be avoided, transferred, accepted, or mitigated.

Avoiding risks means you eliminate any chance of facing the risk altogether. This is rarely a feasible solution for most projects. For example, in cybersecurity, disconnecting from the internet would avoid key risks, but it would also preclude daily business operations.

Transferring means moving the risk to another organization or company. For example, a company might transfer the risk of theft to a security company.

Accepting is when the organization faces the risk head-on. When a company has the capability, this is an ideal way to handle a risk.

Mitigating risk is a process of decreasing the severity of an occurrence. A company might mitigate the risk of exceeding the budget by setting aside a portion for unexpected expenses.

Run Mock Issues

For any risk the organization accepts, running a mock issue ensures that everything is in place, should the event transpire.

A mock issue is essentially a dry run or a fire drill. For example, a cybersecurity company might run a recovery plan for the disaster of losing all company data. The drill in this instance would involve moving everything over to another data center.

Although running mock issues isn’t feasible in every scenario, it’s a helpful exercise whenever possible.

These are some key areas to cover with a risk management plan. Carefully considering all anticipated risks means the project is more likely to stay within its constraints when the issues occur.

How to Manage Issues

A risk management plan ensures you have a proactive and not reactive approach to issues when they surface. It’s about developing a process for handling these issues. Rather than playing a game of whack-a-mole to resolve them, this plan ensures issues are prioritized and then managed effectively.

Here is what to include in an issue management plan:

• A Problem Statement: A problem statement puts an issue or problem into writing. This serves to focus and direct the group’s energy toward solving it.
• An Impact Assessment: An impact assessment considers the significance of issues, and how they affect the project’s overall objective. This is a key step toward prioritizing issues.
• A Log: Recording issues into a log helps determine which issues to handle, and in what order.

In sum, risk and issue management plans, taken together, create a strong shield against all the risks and issues a project faces.

Have you ever had clients who fret and fuss over every detail? Just so you can sleep at night, you probably find yourself tending to their every need.

Or have you ever dealt with the fallout of a disappointed client?

None of this is ever any fun.

In order to avoid these scenarios, every seasoned project manager develops a compulsion to overcompensate.

The problem with going above and beyond, however, is that it leads to another danger zone, known as gold plating. Because in the world of project management, perfection means methodically punching away at a project, and delivering just what the clients requests. Nothing more and nothing less.

At first blush, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. How could striving to exceed customer expectations lead to more problems?

That’s what we’re going to cover in this post. As it turns out, everything that’s golden is not glittery. So if you want to improve your approach to project management, let’s take a look at the ins and outs of gold plating, as well as strategies for avoiding it.

Gold Plating: A Definition With Examples

Traditionally, gold plating is the practice of covering a less precious metal with a thin layer of gold. A pair of gold plated rings may look like they’re made from gold, but scratching below the surface reveals they consist mostly of copper.

Gold plating, then, is also a metaphor for presenting a shiny exterior in order to conceal something less desirable beneath the surface. A company may present a gold plated earnings report, when in fact its books are in disarray and it’s on the brink of bankruptcy.

Gold Plating Definition

In project management, gold plating means adding something to a deliverable that’s outside the original scope of the project. Here’s the standard project management definition:

Gold plating: The practice of incorporating features and improvements that go beyond a product’s agreed-upon characteristics. This is generally done to boost customer satisfaction.

It’s easy to envision how gold plating is desirable. At the beginning of a project, the expectations are laid out, and everyone understands the requirements and deliverables. However, the execution of a project gives rise to a variety of scenarios and conflicts. Maybe a team member becomes exuberant about a certain feature, and all on his own decides to embellish and add onto it. Or maybe the project isn’t proceeding so well, and the team wants to conceal poor workmanship with a few add-ons.

However, this practice of gold plating opens the door to new problems: additional risks, increased time and cost or a befuddled customer who doesn’t like the changes.

Examples of Gold Plating

Let’s look at a few examples of gold plating to get an idea of what it looks like in a project.

Take a bathroom remodel, for example. Maybe the original plan was to include one niche for soap in the shower. A contractor, concerned about pleasing the client, might decide to add an extra niche for shampoo bottles. However, the client may well be upset about this change, as it wasn’t in the original agreement. It could lead to an expensive scenario of having to re-do an entire wall of tiling.

Or in a software project, a team might decide to add a tutorial video to the log-in page. The client may be so pleased with the video that she wants a tutorial video on every page. Since this wasn’t in the original contract, the team is then pressured to perform this extra work at no pay.

Rather than exceeding customer expectations, gold plating is about being psychic and anticipating expectations the customer never even articulated. This can easily lead to misunderstandings and additional work.

In Contrast with Scope Creep

Gold plating may sound a lot like scope creep. Both are similar in that they involve making changes to a project, and both lead to undesirable outcomes.

Notice, however, that gold plating is only about making one change to a project. However, scope creep refers to changes that affect all aspects of a project.

Here’s the project management definition of scope creep:

Scope creep refers to gradual changes in project scope that occur without a formal scope change procedure. Scope creep is considered negative since unapproved changes in scope affect cost and schedule but do not allow complementary revisions to cost and schedule estimates.

Although gold plating isn’t the same as scope creep, it can easily lead to it.

Let’s look at the bathroom remodel again. In order to spruce things up, say the designer decides to flank the bathroom mirror with sconces. Then, it turns out the homeowners like them so much, they want sconces added to other areas of the remodel as well, even though it was never part of the original agreement.

Adding the sconces started with just one change (gold plating), but it led to changes that increased the scope of the entire project, affecting its time and budget (scope creep).

The Problem with Gold Plating

Ideally, managing a project means meeting clearly defined requirements within agreed upon constraints, including a time frame and budget. Any changes to the requirements or scope follows a standard methodical procedure.

Gold plating ignores these processes and agreements, and in doing so introduces an assortment of problems into a project. Here’s a few of the possible effects of gold plating:

Introduces New Risks

At the beginning of a project, the team looks at all risks and develops a risk management plan that includes things like mitigating controls and a succession plan.

However, when a team makes an entirely unanticipated change, it assumes risks never before considered, with no plan to protect against them.

Requires Additional Time, Money and Resources

A project works within agreed-upon constraints, including time, money, risk and resources. Gold plating assumes additional time and resources that aren’t in the budget. For example, adding a functionality in a software project requires additional testing, time and costs. This means that another area of the project is neglected, or else the project exceeds its constraints.

Confuses the Team

When a project is poised for success, everyone, more or less, is working toward the same North Star. However, introducing random changes alters the focus of some team members. It becomes unclear where to place energy, and the team’s output and efforts become muddled.

Misleads the Client

Gold plating, even with the best intentions, gives the client something he never asked for. It means ignoring the contract and direct requirements and charting a new course. At its core, then, gold plating is dishonest. The client expects to receive what was agreed upon; altering this course is unethical and may well lead to legal snafus.

Leads to More Work

Even if an add-on looks simple, it may well lead to something else entirely. For example, say a team adds a feature that ends up not working. The team then has to spend time providing support–for a feature that wasn’t even required!
In sum, the best approach to a project is to reject the exuberance of an eager-beaver. Adopting a slow and steady approach wins the day.

The Allure of Gold Plating

If gold plating introduces so many problems, then why are teams enticed to engage in it? Here are a few of the perceived benefits of gold plating.

Meeting and Exceeding Expectations

This is the objective of every project manager, right? All too often “exceeding” sounds synonymous with providing a little extra. This line of thinking, as we see, gets teams into trouble. It can seem like an improvement to add a bonus, when in fact it introduces a host of problems.

In reality, meeting and exceeding expectations means taking an even keel approach. Providing honest work and consistent communication is the surest way to keep the client satisfied.

Creating a Glittering Distraction

Sometimes in a challenging project, the deliverable doesn’t look as “presentable” as the team might like. In order to conceal the rough edges, it’s tempting to fancy it up with a few extras.

But ultimately, the client understands what’s going on. Gold plating in the end comes across as an effort to conceal shoddy work. And that isn’t a recipe for developing a good business reputation or repeat service.

Gold plating is a little bit like dipping into a giant tub of french fries: on its surface it feels like a good idea. But before long it reveals itself to be nothing but a stomach ache.

Strategies to Avoid Gold Plating

Fortunately, gold plating can easily be avoided with these strategies.

Keep Teams Small

Gold plating is more likely to happen within large teams. A “design-by-committee” approach to a project leads to scenarios where no one is in charge and people make changes without following any procedures.

Ideally, a team never exceeds seven to nine members. When it becomes as large as ten, splitting the team into two ensures a commitment to excellence and quality.

Within a small team, only one or two people make decisions, and it’s easier to discuss potential changes with everyone.

Create a Strong Scope Document

A scope document lays out the parameters of a project. It includes its requirements, the deliverables and constraints around time, money, risk and resources. The scope document also discusses what won’t be included in the project, and assumptions around who is able to work and for how long.

Laying out expectations for everyone to see creates a strong antidote to gold plating.

Communicate Consistently

When teams communicate daily at a scrum meeting, and bi-weekly for retrospectives or wrap-ups, it allows everyone to air concerns and ideas. This way, everyone is abreast of new movements, and together the team discusses possible changes.

Follow a Change Management Process

Rather than gold plating changes into a project, following a procedure ensures that changes are carefully considered and beneficial. The objective of a change process is to make sure that the appropriate people oversee and approve the changes.

With a good procedure, the team communicates the change to a team lead or scrum master. Next, the leader submits the change request to the project manager, outlining the benefits, reason, cost, description and impact. The project manager is then responsible for assessing new risks and scope.

A Solid Gold Approach

It really is ironic that trying too hard sometimes impedes your efforts.
Rather than “improve” a project through random add-ons, the best thing you can do for a customer is to deliver what they ask for. A team exceeds expectations through its quality of communication and service, not by adding “freebies” and “extras.”

Clear communication between the team and the client are key to minimizing incidences of gold plating.

If you’re managing a remote team, be sure to check out Teamly. This project management software makes it easy for teams to communicate continually, every single day.

Have you ever worked on a project that was way behind schedule, way over budget, and ultimately resulted in a mediocre product? If so, you’re definitely not the only one.

Many frustrated managers have scrutinized fizzled projects, and conclude they’re often a symptom of a broken methodology. And they’ve worked to develop new and improved ones.

“Sprints” have become a real buzzword in the project management world. At first blush, the word conjures up images of a running track, starting blocks, and athletes in tiny shorts bursting through a finish line ribbon.

In project management, however, sprints aren’t athletic events. Rather, they’re short bursts of work that magically improve a project’s process and its output.

Want to know more about agile project management and sprints? That’s what we’re discussing in this post, so without further ado, let’s get into it.

A Recent History of Project Management

In the past few decades, some of the most significant changes in project management have come out of the software industry.

Waterfall: A Definition

Back in the 80s and 90s, software developers used a project management method called waterfall.

Waterfall is a fixed, top-down approach to managing a project. The leader establishes the timeline and the budget, and the team falls in line behind him or her. Gantt charts typically are utilized with waterfall, with each step of the project carefully plotted out and recorded.

The Problem with Waterfall

Although waterfall is useful for certain types of projects, in many instances the method creates nothing but trouble.

The software developer Ken Schwaber, in his book Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, expounds on his experience with waterfall:
“The process was slow, unpredictable, and often never resulted in a product that people wanted or would pay to buy.”

“Step-by-step plans…reassured management that we were in control of the development process—but almost without fail, we could fall quickly behind schedule and disastrously over budget.”

What is it about waterfall that creates this sort of mess? The development team works to complete a contract, and never communicates with the client during the project. Its rigid, fixed approach doesn’t allow for reflection and course correction.

Have you ever been frustrated by a software system that wasn’t at all user friendly? In all likelihood, it was created using a waterfall approach. During its creation, the development team never paused to test the software on potential customers. Rather, they listened to the directives of the project manager, then worked from start to finish with horse blinders on.

It’s no surprise, really, that this approach results in a sloppy product nobody wants to use.

Agile: The Solution

In the 90s and early 2000s, software developers started discussing their frustrations with waterfall.

Intent on finding a better way, a group of them put their heads together and wrote the Agile Manifesto.

The manifesto places values on “individuals and interactions over processes and tools” and “responding to change over following a plan.”

Agile sought to resolve fundamental problems with waterfall. It encouraged collaboration with the client throughout a project, daily face-to-face communication, autonomous teams, and frequent reflection.

Although initially agile was utilized exclusively by software developers, within a decade or so it started to trend in other areas as well. Currently, it’s not uncommon to see the agile method embraced by construction companies, marketing agencies, and even by families to assist with home planning.

Agile & Scrum

The essence of agile is producing work in small batches, reflecting and then plotting a path forward. Whereas waterfall might be compared to an unbending rod of steel, agile is more like a flexible branch, or a malleable piece of clay.

An agile process allows for change and adaptation throughout the project, even late in the game. An agile team consistently shares its work with the client and other stakeholders and uses the feedback to chart a path forward.

The agile manifesto says that teams aim to: “Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.”

Scrum is an agile system developed by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. It was inspired by an article in The Harvard Business Review in the 80s, written by two Japanese professors.

The scrum method lays out clearly defined roles, ceremonies, and artifacts. The scrum framework allows a team to plan a project around agile principles. One of its central ceremonies is a sprint.

The Skinny on Sprints

In scrum, a “sprint” represents one iteration or rotation of a project. During this iteration, a team completes a designated amount of work.

Generally, a sprint lasts two weeks, but it can be as short as a week, and some teams even design sprints that last only one day.

A series of sprints, then, comprises the entire project. The idea is that grouping work into small batches gives teams the space to pause and reflect, regroup, and re-chart the course if necessary.

What’s Needed to Plan a Sprint?

A well-planned sprint requires some tools and key information.

A Backlog

Every scrum team needs a backlog. A backlog is a record of all the work necessary for the completion of the project. Grooming the backlog and prioritizing the most pressing work falls to the role of the product manager.

Story Points Assigned to Backlog Items

The next task is to assign “story points” to each item in the backlog.

A story point measures the amount of work each item in the backlog represents. These points allow teams to select an appropriate amount of work for each sprint. Story points always are estimates, and assigning them is an activity teams do together.

This point value isn’t a measure of time, but rather a measurement of output. (The research has shown that time estimates are often inaccurate. The amount of time it takes to complete one task can vary greatly depending on who is doing the work and when the work is completed.)

Teams that have worked together for a while develop a good sense around the number of story points they’re able to complete over a sprint. This number is referred to as its velocity.

How to Plan a Sprint

At the beginning of a sprint, the team comes together for a sprint planning session. At this session, everyone looks at an overview of the project, with the objective in mind. They consider any updates, client feedback, and other stakeholder input.

Next, they look at the product backlog and identify the work that’s going to make significant progress toward the goal. An objective is to eliminate busy work, and identify tasks that are both high priority and essential to the project’s completion.

Independent teams are a trademark of agile. And so on its own, the team selects work and assigns tasks to specific people.

When work has been selected and assigned, the team officially begins the sprint.

How to Conduct a Sprint

Throughout a sprint, teams meet daily at a scrum meeting. This brief meeting is an opportunity to discuss any impediments or blockers to completing the sprint.

During the sprint, an agile team may swarm around a certain task to bring it over the finish line. This means that everyone on the team focuses exclusively on that task until it’s completed.

How to Complete a Sprint

The completion of a sprint is a significant stage in the process.

First of all, the team presents what it’s created to the client, for feedback. This step signifies a crucial difference between agile and waterfall. It allows the client to determine if the team is working in the right direction; if they’re in fact developing what the client has asked for. The team carefully considers the feedback when it plans its next sprint.

Next, the team, on its own, participates in a “retrospective” ceremony. The essence of the retrospective is to identify things that went well, and to discuss things that could be improved for the upcoming sprint.

This briefly captures the essence of a sprint and its processes. How do teams and projects benefit from sprints? Let’s discuss this next.

The Benefits of Working in Sprints

In the same way that short bursts of exercise improve your health, sprints improve a project in all sorts of ways.

Increases Collaboration

The Agile Manifesto says to “build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.”

Agile teams are autonomous and self-motivated. On its own, the team prioritizes work in the product backlog and then selects and assigns work during the sprint. The daily scrum and swarming sessions during a sprint further increase cooperation and bonding within a team.

Creates Opportunities to Improve the Product

When a team is myopically focused on bringing a project over the finish line, creating a superb product becomes a secondary priority.

On the other hand, working in short iterations creates opportunities to pause, assess, and make adjustments. Working in sprints ensures that the project continues on the path to success.

Leads to a Happier Client

Sometimes a client doesn’t even really know what she wants at the beginning of a project. Or her requirements change mid-way.

Agile “welcomes changing requirements, even late in development,” and sprints create continuous dialogue between a team and the client, to ensure the product is really going to deliver what she wants.

Focuses the Team’s Energy

Taken all at once, a project can feel immense and overwhelming. Sprints allow a team to focus on more manageable amounts of work. This sharpens its focus and buoy’s its energy.

Carefully choosing tasks during a sprint planning session also eliminates the time a team spends completing busy work and going down rabbit holes.

Saves Money

Planning work in small batches and reflecting generally reduces the need to backtrack, rip things out and start over.

Rather, the team has already reflected and pivoted (if necessary) and so each sprint is a step toward the finish line.