The Phantom Sprint — Invisible Work That Steals Velocity
Your sprint looks healthy — until a phantom dependency eats your finish line. Here’s how to find the invisible work before the demo.
Detection & prevention tactics
Dependency board: visible KANBAN lane for external asks with owners and ETA.
Capacity buffer: protect 10–20% of sprint for unplanned but likely work.
Pre-planning checkpoint: 5-min readout with ops/support to surface recurring interrupts.
Risk register: short public list of items that can block sprint goals.
