Are you Sprinting, or just Running?
Are You “Sprinting” Or Just “Running?”
TLDR: A Sprint without a Goal isn’t a Sprint — it’s just a random collection of tasks. If you want a team that’s focused, empowered, and actually delivering value (instead of just “checking boxes”), it’s time to stop treating your backlog like a grocery list and start planning with purpose.
I was thinking about the concept of “focus” the other day, and I realized something that made me feel a little bit uncomfortable: a lot of us aren’t actually sprinting. We’re just… running.
We’ve got the ceremonies down. We have Daily Standups, Retros, and a Backlog that’s as long as a teenager’s Christmas list. But when I ask, “What are we trying to achieve this sprint?” I get a lot of blank stares, or worse, someone reads me a list of ten unrelated Jira tickets.
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If your Sprint is just a bucket for “stuff that needs to get done,” you aren’t building a product — you’re managing a queue. You aren’t driving toward an outcome, you are pushing for output — and that, my friends, is a recipe for disengaged teams and mediocre results.
The “Checklist Mentality” vs. The Goal
When we plan a Sprint without a clear Sprint Goal, we’re essentially telling our team that the output is more important than the outcome. We fall into a “Checklist Mentality,” where success is measured by how many tickets we moved to the “Done” column, regardless of whether they actually moved the needle for our customer. Focus becomes next to impossible because our goal is to “do stuff” instead of “create an outcome.”
A Sprint Goal is the “Why.” At the end of the next two weeks, what outcome will the team have accomplished? What problem will they have solved? What new things will users and customers get to use?
The Sprint Goal is the single, measurable objective that gives the team permission to say “no” (or “not now”) to work that would have filled up the time, but not really provided the value. It serves to create the focus necessary to navigate the inevitable surprises that pop up mid-sprint. Without a Sprint Goal, when a hurdle appears, the team scatters. With a Sprint Goal, the team swarms.
From Strategy to Sprint
A great Sprint Goal doesn’t exist in isolation; it serves as the connective tissue between your team’s daily tasks and your broader Quarterly Priorities. When you link your Sprint Goal directly to the Squad Roadmap (or even better, your Squad’s OKRs), you ensure that every two-week cycle is a measurable step toward your long-term vision. This alignment prevents “roadmap drift” and gives the team confidence that by hitting their immediate goal, they are directly contributing to the company’s most critical strategic bets.
Accuracy Through Agility
People sometimes ask me, “Coach Dan, how do we get more accurate with our planning?” (OK… no one really asks me that, but I’d like them to!) The secret isn’t better estimation or more complex metrics. It’s clarity.
Accuracy in a Sprint comes from knowing exactly what success looks like. When a team rallies around a shared goal like “Enable users to checkout with a single click” or “Educate customers on our new bundle offer” — they stop worrying about the minute detail of every sub-task and start focusing on the most direct path to that value.
That focus leads to better execution because the team is empowered to make tactical decisions on the fly to protect the Goal. They aren’t waiting for a “directive” from on high; they’re acting as Directors of their own work.
Coach’s Challenge: Set A Goal Next Sprint!
For Product Owners, in your upcoming Sprint, I have a challenge for you:
- Don’t start with the tickets. Start with the outcome. What is the one thing the customer or user will be able to do at the end of these two weeks that they can’t do now?
- Share it, early and often. Put it at the top of your sprint board. Lead off with it at Sprint Planning. Ask about it in the Daily Standup. Kick off Retrospective with it. Make it visible. Make it real. Make it important.
- Protect it. When the inevitable distraction comes in mid-sprint… ask the question, “Does doing this extra request help me to achieve my Sprint Goal?” If the answer is “no,” put the request in the backlog and prioritize it into a different sprint.
For Team Members, when you are given a Sprint Goal by your PO, I challenge you to:
- Apply the “Goal Filter”: Before committing to a Sprint Plan, be clear on how the work in the Sprint Plan directly moves the needle on the Sprint Goal; if it doesn’t, negotiate and refocus on the work that actually delivers the promised value.
- Flag risks early and often: Use the Daily Standup to highlight blockers that threaten the Goal specifically, shifting the conversation from a status update to a tactical swarming session.
- Negotiate the “How”: If you hit a wall, don’t drop the Goal; instead, cut the “gold-plating” on the tasks to ensure the core mission still crosses the finish line.
Agile doesn’t make teams better, people do. And people do their best work when they have a clear mission and the autonomy to achieve it.
So, what’s your goal for your next Sprint? Don’t have one? What’s stopping you from setting one? Having challenges? Don’t know where to start? Ask your coach for some help before another two weeks goes by!
P.S. Your team doesn’t use Scrum? Not using sprints or increments to create value? There are things for you to consider too… Maybe a future article topic? 🤔
We all win together!
Coach Dan
#WeAllWinTogether
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