Unexpected Features During Sprint

Sprint in Agile Scrum is a well-planned and pre-defined set of Product Backlog items that contains user stories of new features, changes, or additions to existing features and issues. Each Sprint has a fixed duration set by product different teams and the planned product backlog items for a Sprint are completed within that Sprint duration. But there are scenarios where unexpected features arrive during a Sprint which can be classified and defined as below:

1. Additional Features: During a sprint, additional features can arrive based on customer feedback or any urgent need identified by the customer. Customers may request to add these additional features to be included in the current sprint.
2. Updates to already defined features: Based on customer feedback or stakeholder inputs, changes may be suggested to the existing features or any features being worked on during the current sprint
3. Issues from Production: There could be bugs or issues that arrive from production, which may need urgent attention and fixing. These could be urgent items that have to be worked on immediately as they could be of the highest priority.
4. Evolving Business Needs: During the Sprint, some requirements may arrive to add or update features based on the evolving business needs or due to some information received about a feature that needs to be worked on instead of any items being worked on or in addition to the items being worked on during the current sprint.
5. External Factors: There could be updates or additional changes due to some external factors like changing market conditions or business competition which need to be worked on during the current sprint on priority instead of the planned work items.

Responding to change and handling unexpected features is the key to maintaining agility and delivering value in an Agile environment in the scrum.

Sprint in Agile Scrum has planned a list of Product Backlog items to be worked on during the Sprint duration. The product backlog items may contain features, tasks, and issues. However unplanned or unexpected features and issue fixes may arise during a Sprint due to various reasons including customer requests or feedback, stakeholder feedback, bug fixes, or changes to existing requirements. This article will discuss the strategies for handling the expected features during Sprint.