Overview
The sprint insight card displays the variance between the team's current work progress and the ideal work progress based on the story points committed to historical Sprints. By using the progress tracker, you can gain insights into the likelihood of your team successfully completing the allocated tasks for a Sprint or Weekly iteration even before the Sprint is over, enabling you to take action promptly to meet your Sprint goals
How is Sprints Progress Tracker calculated?
The sprints progress tracker is calculated by measuring the percentage difference between your team's ideal story points remaining and actual story points remaining for each (weekday) day of the Sprint or Weekly iteration.
Let us walk through this using an example
Context
For a team with a historical average velocity of 60 story points for a 10-day Sprint or Week. (We would recommend that teams plan their total capacity in accordance with the historical velocity as shown on the Velocity Chart.)
Given that this team is about to start working on a 10-day Sprint or Week, with 60 story points planned and daily story points completed as shown in the table below:
Calculate actual story points remaining
As the Sprint or week progresses and the team completes additional story points daily, we calculate the actual story points remaining for each day within the Sprint or Week.
- This calculation is achieved by subtracting the cumulative sum of story points completed up to that specific day from the initial total planned story points for the Sprint or Week.
- In the instance provided, the actual story points remaining on Day 7 are determined by subtracting the cumulative completed sum of 35 story points on Day 7 from the initial planned total of 60 story points. This computation results in 25 story points remaining.
- This is indicated as the actual pace remaining on the insight card and is updated daily.
Calculate the ideal story points remaining
Also, as the Sprint or Week progresses, we calculate the ideal story points remaining for each day within the Sprint based on the team's historical velocity. This computation involves the following steps:
- On Day 1, we assume that the team has its maximum average velocity potential. In this scenario, the Sprint begins with an ideal velocity of 60 story points on Day 1.
- We then calculate the team's daily average velocity, which is 60 story points divided by 10 sprint days. This results in an ideal completion of 6 story points per day during the 10-day Sprint or Week.
- For each day, we subtract the team's daily average velocity from the ideal story point remaining from the previous day, to arrive at the current day’s ideal story point remaining until the end of the Sprint.
- Hence at the beginning of Day 2, the team is expected to have completed a daily average of 6 story points (on Day 1). Consequently, the projected story points remaining on Day 2 amount to the initial total of 60 story points minus the completed 6 story points on Day 1, resulting in 54 story points remaining at the beginning of Day 2.
- This is indicated as the ideal pace remaining on the insight card and updated daily.
Calculate percentage variance
For each day of the Sprint or Week, we calculate the percentage variance between the calculated ideal story points remaining and the calculated actual story points remaining
- Therefore, at the beginning of Day 7, the team was expected to have 24 story points left to complete, which is the ideal story points.
- Based on the actual progress of the Sprint or Week, the team completed 35 story points by Day 7. This means that the actual remaining story points on Day 7 would be calculated as the initial total (60 story points) minus the completed story points (35 story points), resulting in 25 story points remaining.
- Percentage variance =(
(ideal story points remaining - actual story points remaining) / ideal story points remaining)*100 (as a percentage) - hence for Day 7: Percentage variance = (
(24 - 25) / 24)*100 = -4%
Interpretation and display of results
- We interpret and display the percentage variance results in this manner:
Any day with a negative percentage variance is considered off track, while any day with a positive percentage variance is considered on track
Starting from the first day of the Sprint or Weekly iteration until its midpoint, no notifications are provided regarding whether the team is aligning with or deviating from their Sprint story point completion goal. This interval allows the team sufficient time to work on the Sprint tasks and complete some work before the insights notifications. Nevertheless, the insights card does display both the ideal pace remaining and the actual pace remaining for each day.
Sprint (or Week) is off track - From halfway through the Sprint or Week, if the actual story points remaining are more than the ideal story points remaining, we show a notification about the Sprint or Week being off track.
Off track by less than 10%
Off track by more than 10%
Sprint (or Week) is on track - The Sprint or Week is always considered on track when the actual story points remaining are less than or equal to the ideal story points remaining