Forecast your product backlog

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019

Teams use the forecast tool to help in their sprint planning efforts. By plugging in a value for the team velocity, the forecast tool shows which items in the backlog can be completed within future sprints. Both tools are team-specific tools that rely on the team's ability to estimate backlog items. Once your team has completed a sprint or two, they can use the team velocity to forecast how much of the backlog they can finish within the upcoming sprints.

Use this article to learn:

• How to forecast upcoming sprints
• Required and recommended team activities to support forecasting

Note

For more information, see Backlogs, boards, and plans. In case you don't see the desired work items on your backlog or board, see Set up your backlogs and boards.

Prerequisites

• Project membership: Be a member of a project.
• Permissions: Be a member of the Contributors security group.
• Access levels: Have at least Basic access.

Note

Users with Stakeholder access for a public project have full access to backlog and board features just like users with Basic access. For more information, see Stakeholder access quick reference.

Required and recommended activities

Here's what you need to have in place before you attempt to forecast your team's backlog.

Required:

• Define iteration paths (sprints) and configure team iterations
  • Sprints should be of the same duration.
  • Select enough future sprints to forecast your entire product backlog.
• Define and estimate backlog items. If you work from your team's backlog, the items you create automatically get assigned to the current sprint (Iteration) and to your team's default Area Path.
• Update the status of backlog items once work starts and when completed. Only backlog items whose State maps to a state category of Proposed or In Progress show up on the velocity chart. (For more information, see Workflow states and state categories).

Recommended:

• Define and size backlog items to minimize variability.
• Determine how your team wants to treat bugs. If your team chooses to treat bugs like requirements, bugs appear on the backlog and be counted within the Velocity chart and forecasting.
• Set your team's area path. The forecast tool forecasts those items based on your team's default settings. These settings can specify to include items in area paths under the team's default or exclude them.
• Don't create a hierarchy of backlog items and bugs. The display of the leaf node, the last node in a same-category hierarchy, may only appear on boards, sprint backlogs, and Taskboards. For more information, see Fix reordering and nesting issues, How backlogs and boards display hierarchical (nested) items.
  Instead of nesting requirements, bugs, and tasks, maintain a flat list—only creating parent-child links one level deep between different-category items. Use Features to group requirements or user stories. You can quickly map stories to features. The map creates parent-child links in the background.
• At the end of the sprint, update the status of those backlog items that the team has fully completed. Incomplete items should be moved back to the product backlog and considered in a future sprint planning meeting.

Note

If you work with several teams, and each team wants to work with their own backlog, velocity chart, and forecast tool, you can create additional teams. Each team then gets access to their own set of Agile tools. Each Agile tool filters work items to only include those whose assigned area paths and iteration paths meet those set for the team.

Forecast upcoming sprints

Use the forecast tool to get an idea of how many items you can complete within a sprint. By plugging in a velocity, you can see which items are within scope for the set of sprints the team has activated.

To forecast your product backlog, complete the following actions.

1. (1) Check that you've selected the right project, (2) choose Boards>Backlogs, and then (3) select the correct team from the team selector menu.

   

   To select another backlog, open the selector and then choose a different team or select the View Backlog directory option. Or, enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.

   

2. Check that you have selected Stories (for Agile), Issues (for Basic), Backlog items (for Scrum), or Requirements (for CMMI) as the backlog level.

   

3. (Optional) To choose which columns should display and in what order, choose the actions icon and select Column options. For more information, see Change column options.

   

4. Choose the view options icon and slide Forecasting to On. To keep things simple, turn the Mapping and Planning panes Off.

   

   Set In Progress Items to Off to hide those items that won't be counted in the forecast. The forecast tool ignores Scrum items set to Committed or Done and Agile and CMMI items set to Active, Resolved, or Completed.

5. Enter your team's predicted velocity.

   

   Tip

   If your team has been working for several sprints, you can gain an idea of your team's velocity from the Velocity widget.

   The tool draws lines for each future sprint selected by the team. The Forecast lines show how much work your team can complete in future sprints. Typically, items above the first line are already in progress for the current sprint. Items that fall between the first and second forecast lines indicate what can be completed in the named sprint.

Review the forecast results

• Check the results manually to understand discrepancies in what you expect and what the forecast tool displays.
• Check the amount of effort (Effort, Story Points, or Size) forecasted per sprint.
• Question forecast results where the effort of an item is near to, or greater than, team velocity.

In this example, a Velocity of 20 is used. The forecast tool limits the number of items that are shown between the forecast lines to those items that can be completed within the sprint or using unused velocity points from the previous sprint.

The forecast tool shows between two and four items can be worked on during Iterations 2 through 6 based on the number of Story Points you assigned to each user story or bug. The forecast logic carries over velocity points from one sprint to the next.

• Iteration 2: 13 Story Points, items 1 and 2 can be completed; 7 velocity points are carried over to the next sprint

• Iteration 3: 24 Story Points, items 3 through 5 can be completed; 3 (=20+7-24) velocity points are carried over to the next sprint

• Iteration 4: 21 Story points, items 6 through 8 can be completed; 2 (=20+3-21) velocity points are carried over to the next sprint

• Iteration 5: 16 Story points, items 9 through 12 can be completed; 6 (=20+2-16) velocity points are carried over to the next sprint

• Iteration 6: 23 Story points, items 13 through 16 can be completed; 3 (=20+6-23) velocity points are carried over to the next sprint

  

Determine the velocity needed to complete all items in the backlog

Another way to use the forecast tool is to enter different velocity values until all the backlog items are completed within a given set of sprints. This forecast provides an estimate of what velocity is required to complete your backlog of items.

You can then assess the delta between the current team's velocity and the required velocity. The delta helps determine what other resources are required to meet production demands within a required time.

Next steps

Assign work to a sprint

Related articles

• Team velocity
• Define iteration paths (sprints) and configure team iterations
• Use the taskboard to track work during your sprint
• Monitor the sprint burndown chart to determine if your team is on track to complete the sprint plan