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Ask HN: How do you work on things that will never make it into the sprint?

2 points by marsrover ↗ HN
Say you're working on some functionality and notice a file that could be cleaned up and refactored, but it is unrelated to the current thing you're working on completely. It would probably take about a day or maybe even two to refactor it. You add it to the backlog and month after month passes and you never get to add it to the sprint. What do you do? Work outside the sprint? Never work on it?

2 comments

[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 18.5 ms ] thread
jaabe
Why does it need refactoring? Because you think you can write it better or because you can actually improve its efficiency?

If it’s the former, don’t. If it’s the latter turn it into a task and have it prioritised.

atentaten
Make it part of your engineering culture to include stories that tackle technical debt. For example, every sprint or every other sprint you can include 1 or more stories for code cleanup, refactoring and documentation.