A Sprint Goal should be outcome-oriented, collaborative, and singular. The whole Scrum team should create the Sprint Goal during Sprint Planning and the goal should be debatable and open to discussion until the team finalizes it by the end of Sprint Planning. Initial Sprint Goal discussions are held in the Sprint Review with the stakeholders based on the current progress made so far towards the Product Goal.
Sprint Goals can be written as SMART goals:
- Specific – The goal should be about 1 thing that your customers value.
- Measurable – There must be a way to measure if the goal was achieved or not. So, the goal must be tangible and objective and cannot be subjective.
- Achievable – The goal must be something the team can accomplish within the Sprint.
- Relevant – The Sprint Goal must be connected to a longer-term strategy or objective like the Product Goal.
- Time-Oriented – Now is the right time to work on this goal and it can be achieved within the Sprint timebox.
Sprint Goals can be written as FOCUS goals:
Another good technique to use when crafting Sprint Goals is to use the FOCUS mnemonic introduced by Maarten Dalmijn in the book Driving Value with Sprint Goals: Humble Plans, Exceptional Results.
- Fun: Come up with a memorable title and try to inject an element of fun (optional but recommended).
- Outcome-oriented: The goal should achieve a common understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish.
- Collaborative: The whole Scrum Team creates the Sprint Goal together.
- Ultimate: The Sprint Goal should include a why, the ultimate reason behind what we’re trying to achieve.
- Singular: The Sprint Goal should consist of a single common objective instead of multiple competing objectives.
Examples of Sprint Goals
Maarten shares these examples:
“The fast and the furious: Decrease page load time on the Product Detail Page by 200 ms.”
“Show me the money: Increase conversion by 0.7% by reducing friction in checkout.”
“Beam me up, Scotty: Migrate our customers to a new customer service platform.”
Maarten Dalmijn in the book Driving Value with Sprint Goals: Humble Plans, Exceptional Results.
Tips for Writing Sprint Goals
Whichever approach you use, keep in mind that:
- A Sprint Goal should be crafted collaboratively in Sprint Planning with the Developers and not imposed on the Developers.
- Developers must agree that it is reasonable and achievable within the Sprint duration. If not, then the team needs to come up with a more realistic goal.
- There should be just 1 Sprint Goal to encourage collaboration, prioritization, and focus.
- The Sprint Goal should never be about velocity or any other such measure. It should be about the product and something the customers/users value.