The Team That Decided Sprint Goals Were Optional | Alf Dobbert-Baums

Alf Dobbert-Baums: The Team That Decided Sprint Goals Were Optional

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"Everything was a golden route. It was kind of like a little feature factory." - Alf Dobbert-Baums

Alf coached three teams. None of them cared about THE sprint goal. Most sprints had five or six "goals" — which is to say, none. The Product Owner was a proxy PO, no authority to say no, so anything that landed in the inbox got pulled into the sprint. The team had several applications to support on top of feature work. Missing a sprint goal had no consequences, so the question stopped being asked. When Alf pushed for a single, focused goal — concrete or abstract, didn't matter — the team would shrug and add three more stories to the cluster. Asked which item mattered most, they answered: "all of them." Alf names the dynamic precisely: short-term personal urgency replaced the team goal, and "all of them" became the death of focus. The cost wasn't just the missed goals — it was the missed collaboration. With a sprint goal, the team works together on one thing. Without one, they cooperate on parallel tracks and call it a sprint. There's a difference. Sprint goals create focus, predictability, and the rare feeling of finishing something together.

In this segment, we talk about the difference between cooperation and collaboration and why sprint goals are the lever that turns one into the other.

Self-reflection Question: If you asked your team this sprint "what's the most important thing we'll finish?" — and they answered "all of them" — what would you do next?

Featured Book of the Week: Humble Consulting by Edgar Schein and Don't Just Do Something, Stand There by Marvin R. Weisbord

Alf gives two recommendations. The first is Humble Consulting by Edgar Schein — "It teaches you that you don't know anything, and even if you ask, you still will not fully understand what the other person is in… But the good thing is that when you ask questions, it might help the other person to get on a different track." The second is Don't Just Do Something, Stand There by Marvin R. Weisbord. Alf tells a story to explain why it matters: he prepared a polished 90-minute workshop. Within 5 minutes of starting, the team's real topic surfaced — and it had nothing to do with his agenda. His head screamed "no, my workshop!" but the book gave him permission to ditch the plan, name what he was seeing, and let the team choose. They chose the new topic. He moderated. It became one of the most important sessions he ever ran. The lesson: don't just do something — stand there, and let what's really happening become visible.

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About Alf Dobbert-Baums

Alf lives in Berlin. He studied Theater/Religion at the Freie University Berlin. He is a Systemic Organizational Consultant, a Scrum Master and Agile Coach. He has also been a freelancer for Usability and Requirements Engineering for car manufacturers. At "Verti" he led the agile transformation.

You can link with Alf Dobbert-Baums on LinkedIn.