Furthermore, I’ll reflect on the elements that should have been included in this reset exercise. I’ll cover the background for using a Sprint 0 to reset this team and the sessions we used in our reset process. Here I regale the tale of how we used Sprint 0 realign or a project course for a struggling team to align to a new product vision. However, as you will come to see through this journey, there is more to setting up a team for successful delivery than just a product backlog and roadmap! Initially, I assumed that setting out the product vision and an initial plan for the first few sprints would be sufficient. Unlike the traditional justification for engaging in a Sprint 0 to set up a brand-new team, I found myself in the unusual situation of using Sprint 0 to reset an existing team which was struggling to deliver. When stuck in a rut, how do we reset in such a way that we set ourselves up for delivering value again? In addition to providing small changes to our course as we discover new information, we must also be prepared to reset our course if required to eliminate our bad habits. Responding to changing product direction is one of the key principles we follow as agilists.

Determining success of a Sprint 0 reset is challenging, and can only be determined once the team is regularly delivering working software and performing regular Sprint Reviews.Ĭhange is an inevitable part of the software development process for any individual working in IT today.

It’s important to ensure those issues are acted upon within the later delivery sprints to continue assisting the team on their improvement journey.

Any sprint 0 exercise may miss elements that could have contributed to a successful reset.

In addition to the obvious constructs such as backlog refinement and planning, possible Sprint 0 sessions that should be included for team resets based on our experience are roadmap walkthroughs, team bonding exercises and sessions to generate common team norms and definitions of ready and done.

Sprint 0 is a mechanism that can be used to reset an existing team which is struggling with a difficult environment, such as negative product owner engagement experiences or a new product direction.

Resetting a struggling Scrum team turned out to be a very challenging endeavour that required support from the entire team, relevant stakeholders, and IT management.