How Do You Handle Hotfix pushes via Greenhopper Scrum Model?

[Paul Pobursky]

So here we are running 2 weeks sprints, then all of a sudden we need to push a Hotfix Out. How can you account for this in the middle of a Sprint?

1. Create a new Sprint Names Hotfix then a date to keep it separate from the current Sprint?

2. Leave it in the current Sprint and just mark it in the notes?

3. Any other ideas out there?

[Norman Abramovitz · Accepted solution]

How do you handle the case when someone is sick? What is important to maintain (Velocity, completion date, etc)? Does the hotfix need to be deployed separately or can be rolled up with other fixes? I believe some answers to these questions will determine the correct approach.

You can also just stop the current sprint, readjust your sprints to include any changes and then restart up your sprints.

[Paul Pobursky]

It's a patch that needs to go out ASAP, so only a portion of codes will go out not all of the completed cards in the Sprint. So let's say I have 50 cards in a sprint and 25 of them are complete, but then a Hotfix must go out with just 5 of those cards (leaving the other 20 to go out at a later date). I was wondering how others handle these situations. What do you do with those 5 cards?

[Norman Abramovitz]

We stop the current sprints. In your case we would create the 5 card sprint for the hotfix and decide if we need want to make a 20 card and 25 card sprints or make a 45 card sprint. I all depends on customer expectations.