Sprint Commitment Strategies
Do you commit to 100% of estimated capacity, or build in buffer? Our team constantly overcommits and misses sprint goals. What's the right commitment strategy?
80% rule for commitments, 20% stretch goals. Commit to stories totaling 80% of historical velocity. Identify stretch stories for the remaining 20%. If everything goes perfect, you hit stretch. If not, you still deliver core commitment.
Stakeholders get predictability, team avoids burnout. We've hit 95% of commitments using this vs 60% when we committed to 100%.
Yesterday's weather: commit exactly what you delivered last sprint. Simple, data-driven, automatically adjusts for team changes. No debates about capacity. Last sprint we did 28 points, this sprint we commit to 28. Works surprisingly well.
Account for known risks. Vacation? -20% capacity. Legacy system work? -10% buffer for unknowns. Production support rotation? -15%. Be explicit about the math. Stakeholders appreciate honesty more than optimistic commitments you miss.
Track commitment reliability as a metric. We chart: % of committed stories completed. When it drops below 85%, we're overcommitting. When it's >95%, we're sandbagging. Sweet spot is 85-95%. Adjust commitments accordingly.
Controversial: Don't commit at all. Pull stories from priority backlog as capacity allows. Sprint "goal" is directional, not a hard commitment. Reduces pressure, increases quality. We ship more value this way than when we stressed about commitments.