Sprint Planning: How to ensure an item can't be in an impossible sprint?

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    • #416538

      I am aware that using MSP for agile sprint planning might be an exercise is self hart however I am interested to see if it can be done, especially given the integration with MS Planner to potentially handle the detailed elements.
      Where items have dependencies on each other (for instance a 2 week activity drives another activity which is expected to take 2 weeks) and sprints are 2 weeks long both of these items “can’t” be in the same sprint. Setting up this relationship works in the Gantt however MSP doesn’t stop or even alert me if I place them in the same sprint.
      Is there a setting or technique that will either
      a) force the driven task into a later sprint or prevent it from breaking the relationship that has been set up
      b) warn of the scheduling conflict that has been established.
      Many thanks
      Miles

    • #416539
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      Miles, I don’t believe so at this time. For now I might suggest managing both sprints and the WBS for the features you need. Right now they are mostly separate methods to manage a schedule, but both can be managed if you need features from both. You can use Gantt views with Sprint and Sprint Start, and even some calculated fields to compare the two versions. In my opinion, Microsoft will continue to enhance the ability to do both, but until then you’ll need some double entry/checking. Hope that helps.

    • #416543

      Is there any way of getting to the sprint definition (so that I can pull across the fact that Sprint 1 runs from X till Y) so that I can then compare the start / finish dates for a task/card with the implied start/finish from the Sprint designation? In this way at least there can be a check that the sprint that the card/task is assigned into isn’t “impossible” due to the dates for the same card/task?
      Many thanks
      Miles

    • #416544
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      Not that I know of but I might have a couple thoughts for you. If you have 10 or less sprints, or at least what you are working on, you could use the Start1-10 and Finish1-10 fields if you aren’t using them for something else. You could also put the sprints in Excel and map them to an export or use directly if you are using Project Online or Project Server. Last chance is to hard code the dates…assuming they don’t or at least shouldn’t change. Hope that helps…

    • #416548

      Any hints on how to reach into Excel from MSP Server/online to allow such calculations to be made?
      Many thanks
      Miles

    • #416550
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      Using Project Server/Online improves your options greatly. If you don’t know Power Query/Power Pivot it might be a bit of a journey to get there, but familiarity in these features makes it simple. There are tons of documentation online for bringing in Project data into Excel depending on where you are with your familiarity. I personally like Paul Mather’s blogs but you may need to dig into historical articles https://pwmather.wordpress.com
      Good luck…

    • #416552

      I see Larry – the data journey is from Project to Excel so we can run an external check rather than being able to conduct the calculation / checks in MS Project? I guess that if I want to run the checks within MSP I will need to use S1-10 and f1-10 as suggested.
      Thanks
      Miles

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