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What Is The Sprint Backlog? This Might Surprise You!

The Sprint Backlog contains the Sprint Goal, selected Product Backlog items, and the Developers’ plan for delivering a usable Increment. User stories can describe those items.

These are the items the Developers selected with the Product Owner during Sprint Planning to support the Sprint Goal. The team can estimate Sprint Backlog items to help monitor and plan its work.

The Sprint Backlog is a living artifact, and during the course of Sprint, the Scrum team members continuously update it.

When a Scrum Team member works on a task, his or her name is associated with it. The status of the task is set to "Started Tasks" or "Work In Progress". When the task is completed according to its Definition of Done, its status is set to "Done" or "Completed".

The Developers add or adapt tasks as they learn. They can clarify and renegotiate selected Product Backlog items with the Product Owner, provided the Sprint Goal is not endangered. At the end of every day, the remaining effort to deliver the full Sprint Backlog is calculated. This helps the Scrum Team and the Scrum Product Owner to monitor the remaining amount of work to bring the Sprint goals to success.

The Sprint Backlog can be kept electronically by using a Scrum Project Management Software or spreadsheet software such as Excel or Google Sheets. Alternatively, for smaller and new teams, cards (or post-its) glued on a real physical board can be used too.

The latter has some advantages such as transparency of work and easy access for everyone, including the stakeholders. Its downside is that it's not sustainable if the Scrum Team is distributed over multiple locations.

The figure below shows a sample of how such a Sprint Backlog Board can be built. The structure should be adapted to reflect the needs of the project and the Scrum Team.

A Sample Sprint Backlog Board

It's evident that for a Scrum Team to work productively, they need to understand the difference between a Product Backlog and a Sprint Backlog, and how these two elements interact to move the project forward.

Remember that the Product Backlog is an evolving, ordered source of product work. And now, a small subset of this list is being moved to Sprint Backlog to accomplish the goals of the Sprint.

During the Sprint Planning Meeting, all members of the Scrum Team should discuss what tasks must be done and how these tasks will be completed.

It's at this point that each item on the Sprint Backlog is broken down into tasks or steps that will be taken to complete the committed user stories. All of this must be clearly communicated and agreed upon, so the Scrum Team members have an unmistakable consensus about what is coming in the Sprint and what it takes to accomplish its goals.