Agile "Hardening Sprint" What Why & When

In today's IT industry,  most of the projects follow Agile (SCRUM or KANBAN). During the course of the project mostly towards the tail end or in middle, there is a word that sounds like this "HARDENING" sprint. This is hard to be heard by business as this sprint will not produce a value added release. Rather it focuses on the stability of the app or course correction. 

 The What:
Hardening sprint as said earlier will not take new requirements from the backlog, rather the story will be app stability or defects to be addressed. This is more or less an technical sprint without any architectural output. The desired output is a more stable working app.

 The Why
There are the 3 major reasons for the "Hardening Sprint" to happen

 1. More open defects
The "Done" is "NOT Done". There are too many defects open at the given time. Functional and non-functional defects making the application less valued by business.

 2. Course Correction
Since, Agile allows to change the stories before the sprint start, which leads to changes to the App behavior or inclusion of new services

 3. System Behavior & App Package
Some new or changed features need application architecture change to be implemented. Another significant factor is doing system behavior testing like when web services are down, when App is not upgraded to newer version, the web service to support both newer and older version of the app to be tested by developers and testers for a better customer experience. This will improve the app stability. Last but not the least application package verification might help reduce the app size by removing unwanted codes or modules or images.

 The When:
This is good question, usually, when there is new team developing the app, its better to use this after 4th or 5th sprint based on the requirement changes or open defects or App architecture updates

 Secondly this can be used as the last sprint before the app launch. In this scenario if the sprint is 2 week cycle, better to have a release every week to ensure the stability is achieved and tested.

 The DONTS
Do NOT use this sprint to take the left out stories from backlog, this will have bigger issues in projecting the velocity and release cycle and it will have repercussions from business owners. This needs to be watched out by the SCRUM MASTER

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Strategic Program Management

The Quintessentials of Program Management Vision : To deliver a strategy <ABC> resulting in a new business value or amelioration of existing business value <XYZ>,  ultimately driving the net benefits to customers by <OPQ> It is very important to define the business value of the program being executed Identify whether this will create a new capability or better the existing capability How Business is getting benefited from this.  Finally, as a net result how the company is adding value to the customers [shareholders/investors]  Mission: Set the execution parameters to achieve the business goal  The parameters can be culture, policy, sustainability & transparency The parameters can include a new execution model, relevant technology & new capabilities Organization :   Identify what it takes to deliver the program in terms of People, Process, and Technology Do you the high-level timeline, scope, budget, resource, and gaps identified D...
Read more

Tips to check for good Mobile UX

Image
The following are the steps to quickly ascertain the UX for the Mobile (can also apply for Web) From where or How the user will get to this screen What tasks the user can do on this screen How the user can cancel What will happen on cancel or where will be the the user taken to How many touches or clicks does it take to reach to this screen How many fields are selectable vs how many needs virtual keyboard (remember virtual keyboard distracts the user from the transaction) On successful completion what will happen or where will be the  user taken to Overall, remember to have the same pattern throughout the app so that users will need to learn once.
Read more

Coffee Chat

 A Hot Coffee & Frappe As Texas warming up, driving to near by coffee shop every week on a Saturday morning was a routine. In this weekly run, (Last week), I ran into a good friend of mine. He happens to work for a reputed cloud consulting company. We spend a significant time to recap all the events from last year Diwali when we last met. After all those pleasantries, the topic boiled down to " What is currently cooking? " I answered that I took interest in understanding the purchase decisions of the customer known as " Behavioral Economics ." The immediate question from my friend was, "is that part of macro or Micro, looks like your #iMBA is advanced." I stepped in to further explain on how the topic is aligned more towards "how customer makes buying options." After a 5 minute run down on the topic, we settled down with a "Wow, there is a separate topic on this." I reacted with greater satisfaction with a "Yeeeessss." I s...
Read more