What does 'carry over' mean in sprint planning?

In sprint planning, 'carry over' means moving unfinished tasks from one sprint to the next. This happens when the team doesn't have time to complete all planned work.

Is 'carry over' the same as 'roll over'?

'Carry over' and 'roll over' are similar. 'Roll over' is more common for vacation days or budget. 'Carry over' is more common for tasks and work items in tech teams.

Can I say 'carryover' as one word?

Yes. As a noun, 'carryover' is often written as one word: 'The carryover from last sprint was 15 points.' As a verb, it's two words: 'We need to carry over these tasks.'

How do I use 'carry over' in a standup?

In a standup, you can say: 'I'm carrying over the authentication work from yesterday' or 'This task got carried over because I was blocked.'

Is carrying over tasks a bad thing?

Carrying over some tasks is normal. But if your team carries over many tasks every sprint, it may mean estimates are wrong or there's too much work planned.

What preposition goes with 'carry over'?

Use 'to' for the destination: 'carry over to the next sprint.' Use 'from' for the source: 'carried over from last week.'

What Does "Carry Over" Mean in Sprints?

Commonness
Versatility
Formality	CasualFormalNeutral
Spoken ↔ Written	SpokenWrittenBoth
Directness ↔ Diplomatic	DirectDiplomaticNeutral
Region

Say it like this

✓We'll need to carry over these two tickets to the next sprint.

✓How many story points are we carrying over from last sprint?

✓This bug got carried over three times—we really need to prioritize it.

✓Let's carry this discussion over to the next meeting.

✓The remaining budget will carry over to Q2.

Real examples

Standup

"I didn't finish the API integration yesterday, so I'll carry it over to today."

Slack message

"Hey team, we're carrying over 3 tickets from last sprint. Let's discuss priorities."

GitHub PR

"Carrying over the remaining refactoring work to a follow-up PR."

Jira ticket

"Carried over from Sprint 14. Original estimate: 5 points."

Retrospective

"We carried over too many items this sprint. What can we do differently?"

Sprint planning

"Before we add new work, let's look at what we're carrying over."

Pair programming

"This function is getting complex. Let's carry over the edge cases to tomorrow."

Don't say this

✕I will carry over this task tomorrow.

✓I will carry this task over to tomorrow.— Use 'carry over to' when specifying the destination time period.

✕The task carried over.

✓The task was carried over to the next sprint.— Specify where the task was moved to for clarity.

✕We need to carry it over the next sprint.

✓We need to carry it over to the next sprint.— Don't forget 'to' before the destination period.

Other forms

verb (base)

carry over

"We need to carry over these tasks."

verb (past)

carried over

"The bug was carried over from last sprint."

verb (present participle)

carrying over

"We're carrying over too much work."

noun

carryover

"The carryover from last quarter was 20 story points."

Often used with

carry over to the next sprintMost common use in Agile teams

carry over from last weekRefers to unfinished work from previous period

carry over itemsTasks or tickets that need to move

carry over budgetMoney that wasn't spent in one period

carry over discussionContinue a conversation later

Similar words

roll overMore common for budget or vacation days

push toMore casual; implies delay

deferMore formal; often used in documents

move toSimpler and more neutral

transferMore formal; used in accounting contexts

Opposites

completefinishclose outwrap updeliver

Practice

Try it

4 quick exercises

Choose the most natural sentence

1. You need to move unfinished tasks to Sprint 15.

We'll carry over tasks to Sprint 15.We'll carry tasks over Sprint 15.We'll carry over tasks on Sprint 15.

Find the error

2. The remaining work will carry over the next week.

carry over thewill carryremaining work

Complete the sentence

3. Three tickets were _____ from the last sprint because we ran out of time.

Rewrite more naturally

4. The tasks that we did not finish will move to the next sprint.

More words

backlog sprint velocity scope creep blocker rollover defer spill over

Questions

Quick poll

Have you said "carry over" in a standup this week?

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