Well, agile strictly says no to changing sprint backlog in middle of the sprint. However, I have faced and seen situations where changing sprint backlog looked really logical to me.
The customer builds the product for selling. It’s not showcase of a perfectly modularized, architect-ed, unit tested and agile followed product. Its build for creating money, apart from other reasons like showing the creativity of the thoughts of the product owner.
If a customer is getting chance to sell the product in between the sprint and he needs certain functionality immediately to get it sold, then there is no harm in changing the backlog in middle of sprint and implementing the changes that have been asked by the customer. Ultimately, selling the product gets revenue for the customer. And a customer with a stable account balance is what you need for the project running. You won’t want your customer to go bankrupt paying for the developers following agile religiously, rather you will pray for the prosperity of your client so that he is always capable to pay your bills.
I have faced this situation and seen the customer getting benefited through it. And believe me, the sale of the underdeveloped product not only made the customer happy, but it also increased the moral of the team by being able to sell a product in development phase.
However, I only justify this backlog change under strict circumstances like this. The customer should not make it a habit to change the product every now and then as it makes a negative impact on the moral and the efficiency of the team.
But, being stubborn in changing things while using Agile doesn’t creates any good, than bad. So, it’s always good to have a flexible mind.
