Sprint Reporting

There are two uses for reporting a Scrum Master might do in SCRUM

    1. The first is to provide the upper management with enough information that they don't need to direrctly question the team. This then frees the team up from this interationctions to focus on the work at hand
    2. The second is to provide the team with information that they find useful. This enables the team to better plan their work, measure the success/failure fo changes made, or has other benefits like showing progress against the team's long term goal

Repoprting to satisfy upper management

Typically upper managament do not need a lot of information about the development teams. They will realistically only want some of the following information:

    • Is the team generally meeting it's sprint commitments
    • Is the team's velocity predictable
    • Are the team focused on the work at hand
    • Are the team happy
    • How quickly do the team get through the work given to them

If you know how to satisfy some or all of the above requirements in a report then you'll be able to add value to the team by preventing them from having to meet with upper managament around these five topics. Be prepared to cut out any information that is not being used from your reports and be prepared to experiement with new forms of information that may be helpful.. and check afterwards if it was or not.

In the same way as we develop software, be prepared to develop your report to make sure they are adding value where it's needed.

Providing the team with information

Accepting that you don't know what the team wants or needs in a report is a goods start. Let the team be your guide around what to put into the sprint report and what isn't of any use to them at the moment.

Before you can get meaningful feedback, just start with a basic sprint report. Report information such as:

    • What did the team committ to?
    • What did the team get done?
    • What didn't get done, and why not?
    • What changes are the team going to try next?

Just like the upper management components of your sprint report, be prepared to develop your report to make sure each set of information is adding value where it's needed.