Can I split a sprint into two or more sprints during planning in JIRA Agile?

[Dominic Herity]

Can I split a sprint into two or more sprints during planning in JIRA Agile?

[Dominic Herity · Accepted solution]

This isn't supported because it is considered unusual to break down a backlog into sprints well in advance.

[Kim Poulsen]

I don't think this answer does the question justice or is answered in an unbiased way.

What you are facing is mainly a team/structural issue. It is not unusual to create sprints in advance, it is unusual to have to replan every sprint every time due to "happening stuff" and still believing that sprints can be "planned well in advance". It makes no sense and creates a wrong picture of what the team actually can achieve. Noone wins: Management gets upset because promised features are pushed back, the team gets demoralised because planned work keeps being pushed back (equalling absolutely wasted time spent in planning!).

The correct answer to your question is:

• Yes: A sprint can be split but all issues in already planned sprints must be moved manually down the number of sprints created.
• No: A sprint cannot be split/created and appear before other already planned sprints.

[shari_anderson]

I think since it's so trivial to move items between sprints, they probably never considered a feature to add one in the middle.

[Dominic Herity]

As a user, I find it tedious and error prone to move dozens of tasks between several sprints and then rename the sprints when it could be done in a second.

[Karim Chicar]

I agree with you on that point. We faced this problem when we needed to create a new sprint after the running one as a new project came inattended. We had to move every stories to the next sprint and finally put the stories in the first one. You might say this should not happen all the time but when it happens, it's quiet a mess.

[Kim Poulsen]

Maybe you are planning too many sprints ahead in this case. If you continuously see a need for putting sprints in the middle due to unfinished work or "stuff" happening this is a sign of process (read: your team has work related issues) related issues, not (solely) a tool (Jira Agile) issue.

As Shari wrote it is really trivial to move issues. I won't defend the tool as people should always be over the tools, but it is also healthy to take a step back and actually look at what the people are doing:

Getting disturbed? Comitting to too much (always!)? Getting overruled by others than the PO? Not estimating consistently? Ignoring velocity for commitment?

I have experienced all of the above with my team and all of it resulted in sprint replanning. My personal take on this is that if you start planning more than maybe 2 sprints ahead you are asked/ing for waterfall-using-scrum, not Agile Scrum.

It is a mess, it takes time and hence it can be used openly for informing about structural/company/team issues on the project... And make changes!

[shari_anderson]

To accomplish this you may have to create the sprint, then drag the sprint 3 issues to sprint 4, then sprint 2 issues to sprint 3; then you'd be able to move what you want from sprint 1 to sprint 2. Does that help? It's easy enough to move issues between sprints from the Agile board.

[Dominic Herity]

Shari,

Thanks. That answers the question, but its not the answer I was hoping for. It would be a lot easier to plan if I could split a sprint in one operation or add a sprint somewhere other than at the end. MAybe a feature request would be appropriate.

[RicardoA]

Hi Dominic

Actually you can start more than one sprint at time, but this is currently still in Labs (which means is not yet supported by Atlassian and we may not be able to assist you with problems with this specific feature).

This way you will be able to have more than one sprint at time. You can check this documentation:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/AGILE/How+do+I+have+multiple+or+parallel+sprints+running+at+the+same+time

Hope it helps,

Ricardo Carracedo.

[Dominic Herity]

That doesn't answer it either. Please ask if you need me to explain the question.

[Dominic Herity]

I have three sprints in my project, sprint 1, sprint 2, sprint 3 and a Backlog.

There is no sprint in progress.

There is too much work in sprint 1. I want to add sprint 1a between sprint 1 and sprint 2 and move tasks from sprint 1 to sprint 1a.

If I use the "create sprint" button, a sprint is created after sprint 3, which isn't what I want.

[Rahul Aich [Nagra]]

Yes, you can plan as many sprints as you can on your planning board and assign issues to them. However, you can only start one sprint at a time. You cannot start the next sprint until the current one is completed.

Does that answer your question?

[Dominic Herity]

No. I'm afraid not.

[Rahul Aich [Nagra]]

yes, pls provide more details on what u r trying to achieve with splitting and why you need to split the sprint?