Common Mistakes

Avoid the following mistakes when carrying out release planning on a Scrum project: not employing a release burndown or a release plan; a passive product owner who is not engaged in the release planning process; big-bang releases, delivering lots of functionality in one go; and compromising quality.

No Release Burndown or Plan

I have seen organizations that were used to creating a detailed project plan up front go to the other extreme and not carry out any release planning at all. Thinking only from sprint to sprint is dangerous—and an easy trap to fall into. Doing so makes it difficult to assess the project’s progress and adapt the product and project in the right way. Always have a release burndown or release plan in place. Put it up in the team room and on the project’s wiki so it’s visible to everyone.