Sprints are the heartbeat of work in Orvezo. They give the team a defined window of time, a clear set of commitments, and a moment to close things out and reflect before starting the next cycle. This guide covers how sprints work from creation to completion.
The sprint lifecycle
Every sprint in Orvezo has a status that reflects where it is in its lifecycle. A sprint starts as Planned, becomes Active when it enters execution, and ends as either Completed or Cancelled.
Planned means the sprint exists and can hold stories, but it is not yet running. You can add stories to a Planned sprint, adjust the dates, and reorganize the committed work before activating it. Planning a sprint and running a sprint are intentionally separate steps.
Active means the sprint is in execution. The Board shows this sprint's stories. The team is working from this sprint. An active sprint shows a completion percentage based on how many stories are in Done versus total stories committed.
Completed means the sprint was finished normally. Cancelled means it was stopped before completion, which is different from completing it: it signals the sprint was abandoned rather than finished.
Creating a sprint
Sprints are created from the Sprints tab under Planning. Click Create Sprint and set the sprint name, goal or description, and either exact start and end dates or a duration. Setting by duration calculates the end date automatically based on the length you enter. Overlapping sprint dates are not allowed within a project, so if you have an active sprint running, the next sprint's start date needs to be after it ends.
Once the sprint is created it appears in the Sprints tab as Planned. It also becomes available in the sprint dropdown on the Backlog page so you can start assigning stories to it.
Populating a sprint
To add stories to a sprint, go to the Backlog page, select the sprint in the sprint dropdown on the Sprint column, and drag stories from the Backlog column into the Sprint column. You can also create stories directly in the Sprint column using the Add User Story button there.
Stories in the Sprint column are committed to that sprint for planning purposes. They will appear on the Board when the sprint becomes active. The order of stories within the Sprint column can be adjusted by dragging.
Activating a sprint
When the team is ready to start the sprint, go to the Sprints tab and activate it. Once active, the sprint appears on the Board and the team can start moving stories through To Do, In Progress, and Done. The sprint header on the Board shows the sprint name and the start and end dates so the timeframe is always visible.
If plans change before you activate, you can return a sprint to Planned using the Reset to Planned action. This takes it back out of active execution so you can adjust the committed stories or dates before starting again.
Sprint actions during execution
From the Sprints tab you can take several actions on an active sprint. View Board takes you directly to the Board for that sprint. View Sprint Report shows sprint-level reporting. Complete Sprint closes the sprint as finished. Reset to Planned moves it back to planned state. Cancel Sprint marks it as abandoned. Edit lets you update the sprint name, goal, or dates while it is still in any non-final state.
Completing a sprint
When the sprint ends, complete it from the Sprints tab using the Complete Sprint action. This closes the sprint as the active execution sprint. Stories that are in Done at the time of completion are counted as completed for reporting purposes.
Stories that are not Done when the sprint is completed need to go somewhere. The typical choices are to move them to the Backlog for reprioritization, move them to the Parking Lot if they are deferred, or commit them into the next sprint during planning. Carry-over is worth tracking deliberately: if the same story carries over multiple sprints, that is a signal that it is either too large, too vague, or consistently deprioritized in favor of other work.
Planning ahead with multiple sprints
You can create multiple sprints in advance and populate them with planned work before the current sprint ends. This is useful for teams that do rolling planning or want to have the next sprint ready to activate the moment the current one completes. Sprints that are Planned but not yet Active appear in the Sprints tab below the active sprint and in the sprint dropdown on the Backlog page.
The Export Sprint List button on the Sprints tab exports a list of your sprints, which can be useful for stakeholder reporting or external tracking.