Emergency work
We have all been there: the production environment stopped working; a core product feature is malfunctioning; a security breach has occurred. These are all situations that disrupt the Sprint and require the Developers to re-plan their Sprint work because some remedial work must be performed immediately. Often, such situations are accompanied by mass management panic and the requirement for the Developers to “stop what they’re doing” and “fix this.” The following course of action is advised:
- Do not cancel the Sprint. Sprints should only be canceled if the Sprint Goal becomes obsolete. If the Sprint Goal is still valid and relevant, then, even considering the current emergency, the Sprint must continue.
- Developers should try to minimize Sprint disruption by addressing the immediate problem and not providing a comprehensive solution that will require a lot of extra work and introduce tangential risks. This could often be a...
