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Holiday Calendar

A shared list of non-working days such as public holidays, organization-wide shutdowns, and planned team leave that affect availability. It is created and maintained for the project or release to set sprint dates and forecast capacity. Scrum teams use it during Release Planning and Sprint Planning to make realistic commitments.

Key Points

  • Input to Release Planning and Sprint Planning to set sprint dates and capacity.
  • Captures public holidays, organizational closures, and confirmed team leave across locations.
  • Owned by the Scrum Master and visible to the whole team and stakeholders.
  • Used to adjust capacity and commitments without changing timeboxed sprint length.
  • Links to Create User Stories, Estimate Tasks, Commit User Stories, and Maintain Sprint Backlog processes.
  • Must be updated continuously and versioned to avoid schedule risks and misunderstandings.

Purpose

The Holiday Calendar prevents overcommitment by making non-working days explicit before the team selects user stories for a sprint. It improves forecast quality for both near-term sprints and longer release plans.

By aligning calendars across locations and teams, it supports realistic delivery timelines and sets stakeholder expectations for when work can actually be performed.

Key Terms & Clauses

  • Scope of dates: Clearly state the time horizon covered, such as the full release or a quarter.
  • Non-working day types: Public holidays, company shutdowns, mandatory training days, and approved leave.
  • Time zone coverage: Note country or time-zone specific holidays for distributed teams.
  • Partial-day rules: Define how half days or on-call rotations affect capacity.
  • Ownership and updates: Scrum Master maintains, team members are responsible for timely leave notifications.
  • Change control: Publish updates promptly and communicate impacts to sprint or release forecasts.

How to Develop/Evaluate

  1. Gather sources: public holiday lists, HR calendars, and organization-wide closure schedules.
  2. Confirm team availability: collect planned leave from each member and escalate unknowns early.
  3. Mark non-working days by location: include time zones and team distribution details.
  4. Align with release horizon: map non-working days across the planned sprints in the release.
  5. Publish in a shared tool: link it to the product backlog, release plan, and team calendar.
  6. Review regularly: refresh before each Sprint Planning and at each Retrospective for upcoming periods.

Evaluate the calendar for completeness, clarity, and currency. Check that it supports accurate capacity calculations for the next sprint and upcoming release milestones.

How to Use

  • Release Planning: Block out non-working days to determine feasible sprint start and end dates.
  • Sprint Planning: Compute capacity by subtracting holidays and leave from the sprint's working days for each location and team member.
  • Estimating tasks: Convert available days into task hours or ideal hours as agreed in team working agreements.
  • Commit User Stories: Select a realistic batch of user stories based on the adjusted capacity and historical velocity.
  • Communication: Share constraints with stakeholders so they understand schedule boundaries and delivery cadence.

Example Snippet

Excerpt for a two-week sprint (10 weekdays):

  • Non-working days: Tue 3 Dec - Public holiday; Fri 6 Dec - Company event.
  • Team leave: Priya off Mon 2 Dec; Luis off Thu 5 Dec.
  • Derived capacity note: Team has 8 working days; Priya -1 day, Luis -1 day. Plan sprint work accordingly.

Risks & Tips

  • Risk: Outdated calendar leads to overcommitment and missed sprint goals.
  • Risk: Ignoring time-zone holidays creates hidden capacity gaps for distributed teams.
  • Risk: Extending sprint length to compensate for holidays undermines timeboxing.
  • Tip: Keep a single, shared source of truth and integrate with team calendars.
  • Tip: Reconfirm the next sprint's non-working days during Sprint Planning.
  • Tip: Document assumptions about partial days or on-call coverage in team working agreements.

PMP/SCRUM Example Question

During Release Planning, the Scrum team identifies two national holidays and a one-day company shutdown in the upcoming quarter. What should the Scrum Master use to set realistic sprint dates and capacity?

  1. Definition of Done.
  2. Sprint Burndown Chart.
  3. Holiday Calendar.
  4. Risk Register.

Correct Answer: C — Holiday Calendar

Explanation: The Holiday Calendar explicitly captures non-working days to adjust sprint dates and capacity. The other artifacts do not provide availability information needed for planning.

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