Many Scrum Teams make use of a team’s velocity to help in forecasting. TFS provides just such a feature but beware – the results from TFS Forecasting can be misleading for the unwary.
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Jamessays
Under “Example of TFS Forecasting”, you say:
“The product backlog items forecast to be completed within a sprint are shown below the line.”
…but that hasn’t been my experience. I’ve found that the forecasting appears to ignore any current active stories (i.e. that are ‘Not Done’), and then it fills up forecast sprints. So in your example, with a velocity of 10:
– it can fit 8 points into sprint 4, which leaves 2 points of work from the next 8-pointer started, but the rest of those points are finished in the next sprint
– so sprint 5, has 8 – 2 = 6 points left to complete of that 8-pointer, plus it can fit a 3-pointer in too, plus it starts on 1 point of another 3-pointer, but that must get finished in the next sprint
– so sprint 6 has 3 – 1 = 2 points left to complete of that 3-pointer
The 16-pointer cannot then get complete in sprint 6, it would need another sprint defined which it would then appear in.
As for under “Adjusting the Velocity”, similar reasoning (but with 11 velocity) is applied. The reason that sprint 6 is not shown is because there is nothing that can be completed at all in that sprint. The 16-pointer will be started but cannot be finished, and hence would carry over to a sprint 7, if you had one defined.
Under “Example of TFS Forecasting”, you say:
“The product backlog items forecast to be completed within a sprint are shown below the line.”
…but that hasn’t been my experience. I’ve found that the forecasting appears to ignore any current active stories (i.e. that are ‘Not Done’), and then it fills up forecast sprints. So in your example, with a velocity of 10:
– it can fit 8 points into sprint 4, which leaves 2 points of work from the next 8-pointer started, but the rest of those points are finished in the next sprint
– so sprint 5, has 8 – 2 = 6 points left to complete of that 8-pointer, plus it can fit a 3-pointer in too, plus it starts on 1 point of another 3-pointer, but that must get finished in the next sprint
– so sprint 6 has 3 – 1 = 2 points left to complete of that 3-pointer
The 16-pointer cannot then get complete in sprint 6, it would need another sprint defined which it would then appear in.
As for under “Adjusting the Velocity”, similar reasoning (but with 11 velocity) is applied. The reason that sprint 6 is not shown is because there is nothing that can be completed at all in that sprint. The 16-pointer will be started but cannot be finished, and hence would carry over to a sprint 7, if you had one defined.