Concept 4 of 4

Cancelling a Sprint

2 questions test this

A Sprint could be cancelled if the Sprint Goal becomes obsolete, and only the Product Owner has the authority to cancel it. Those two sentences carry the whole rule, and nearly every question on the topic turns on one or the other.

Obsolete is a high bar

A Sprint Goal is obsolete when achieving it would no longer make sense. The regulator has banned the feature, the competitor has shipped it and taken the market, the customer the work was for has gone, or the company has changed direction so completely that the objective now belongs to a product it no longer sells.

What does not qualify is far more common in exam scenarios. Work turning out harder than expected, a key person falling ill, a dependency arriving late, a stakeholder wanting something else more urgently, or the Developers realising they cannot finish everything they selected. All of those are handled inside the Sprint by renegotiating scope with the Product Owner, because the goal is still worth reaching even if less will be delivered alongside it.

Only the Product Owner decides

The Scrum Master can see that the goal is dead, the Developers can say so first, and a stakeholder can be the one who brings the news that killed it. None of them can cancel the Sprint.

The authority sits with the Product Owner because cancellation is a decision about value rather than about delivery. Continuing a Sprint whose goal is obsolete spends the team's time producing something worth nothing, and the one accountable for maximising the value of the product is the one who should carry that call. This is also why the reverse holds. Management cannot cancel a Sprint either, however senior the person asking.

Why it is rare

Cancellation is expensive. Everyone regroups in another Sprint Planning, the plan is rebuilt from nothing, and the team spends a chunk of the recovered time on the recovery itself.

It is also rare for a structural reason. Sprints are a month or less, so the window in which a goal can go obsolete and there is still meaningful time left to save is narrow. In a two week Sprint that has run for eight days, finishing usually costs less than stopping. A Product Owner who cancels often is normally telling you that the Sprint Goals were never sharp enough to become obsolete, or that the Sprint length is longer than the rate of change in the market allows.

What happens to the work

Completed and Done items are reviewed. If the Product Owner accepts them they are potentially releasable, and work that met the Definition of Done does not stop being valuable because the Sprint around it ended early.

Everything incomplete goes back on the Product Backlog. It is not held aside in a partial Sprint Backlog and it carries no privileged position, so it is sized again and reordered against everything else. A new Sprint then starts with its own Sprint Planning and its own Sprint Goal.

What cancellation is not

It is not a punishment, and it is not a tool for correcting a team that is behind. Using it that way makes the Sprint feel unsafe and pushes the Developers towards padded forecasts, which costs far more than the Sprint being rescued.

Nor is it a way to change direction quickly. A Product Owner who wants different work next can usually wait days rather than weeks, and reordering the Product Backlog before the next Sprint Planning achieves the same thing without throwing away the plan in progress.

Common misconceptions

The Scrum Team decides together whether to cancel a Sprint.

Only the Product Owner has the authority to cancel a Sprint. Anyone may raise the case, and management, the Scrum Master and the Developers can all say that the Sprint Goal looks obsolete. The decision itself belongs to the one person accountable for the value of the product.

A Sprint should be cancelled when the Developers will clearly not finish everything.

An unachievable forecast is not an obsolete goal. Scope may be clarified and renegotiated with the Product Owner, and whatever is not Done returns to the Product Backlog at the end of the Sprint. Cancellation is for a goal that has stopped being worth pursuing, not for a plan that was optimistic.

Cancelling a Sprint means the work done so far is thrown away.

Completed and Done items are reviewed, and anything the Product Owner accepts is normally released. Incomplete items go back on the Product Backlog, where they are sized again and reordered like anything else.

2 questions test this concept

Eight days into a two week Sprint the Developers tell the product owner that one item turned out to be far harder than expected and only three of the six selected items will be finished. The Sprint Goal is still worth reaching. A stakeholder asks the product owner to cancel the Sprint and start again with a realistic plan. What should happen?

  • AKeep the Sprint running and renegotiate scope with the Developers, because an unachievable forecast is not an obsolete Sprint Goal and unfinished items return to the Product Backlog at the end.
  • BCancel the Sprint, since the forecast can no longer be met and a fresh Sprint Planning would produce a plan the team can actually deliver.
  • CCancel the Sprint only if the Developers and the Scrum Master agree, because a cancellation affects the whole team.
  • DExtend the Sprint by three days so that all six items can be completed before the Sprint Review.
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Related material
Book
Essential Scrum, On Sprint abnormal termination and what happens to the work.
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Scrum: A Pocket Guide, On the Sprint as a container and the conditions for ending it early.