Best Practices for Moving Issues to a new sprint

[Stephanie Skantze]

We are running 2-week sprints with a cross project board.  We have only run 5 sprints, so our story point estimates have been getting better, but honestly, we do end up with some tasks that don't get completed. 

What is the best practice in terms of when to move the issues out of the current sprint?  Should you always wait until you close the sprint? 

In the first 3 sprints, we moved issues prior to the close of the sprint.  In the last, we did not and followed the prompts when closing a sprint. 

thoughts? suggestions? 

[Dave Mathijs · Accepted solution]

Hi @Stephanie Skantze ,

Personally, I would effectively wait until sprint completion because your reports are based on the initial estimation. Also, moving issues out of a sprint before the end date is changing not only initial estimation but also initial scope.

Moving issues to the next sprint on active sprint completion give you more realistic reports (burn down chart, velocity, sprint reports, etc.)

[Tobias C.]

Definitely. It is not easy for team to say that the issue is not "done done", but if you move it into the new sprint you are loosing the sprint history and as Dave said your burn down chart is a bit useless.

Another trap are parallel active sprints. The team just wants to fix the nearly finished ticket in the active sprint, but also start a new sprint - Do not ;)

Stop starting, start finishing :)

One active sprint and accepting the definition of done really helps.