Scrum/Kanban - Adding User Story Between Sprint

Add a new Story in current Sprint.. lot of buzzz around on multiple pages/blogs.
This is a good discussion. My thoughts to this buzz topic  are few folds here:

1. Adding User Stories between Sprint is one way of Iteration Planning called as 'Commitment Driven Planning' (Source Mike Cohn book Chapter 14).
2. Adding  User Stories between Sprint comes when there is a High Priority Items come in picture due business priority changes (possible scenario in real world).
3. Adding  User Stories between Sprint should be an exception and not a habit.
4. Well in such cases, it is certainly legitimate to:
• Happy Scenario - Remove less priority stories from current Sprint Backlog ('To do' List) and pull a new story of size of similar size. E.g
• Here if need is to add E as high priority item to the board, team will remain open and take it as  “Feel free to add E to the 'Todo' column and remove either C or D in that case and pull 'E' in the top item from To Do”.

• Ok Scenario - Remove less priority stories from current Sprint Backlog ('In-Progress' List) and pull a new story of size which can fit in remaining available time. Well this may have few additional work to rollback any code changes taken, but not impossible). Also this will impact final Sprint velocity, however will be understood by management and you'll gain browney points too for being agile).

More reference: 

• Scrum/Kanban - http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/kanbanscrum-minibook
• Mike Cohn - http://synchronit.com/downloads/freebooks/Agile%20Estimating%20and%20Planning.pdf

In nut-shell, being Agile, we need to be mature to handle real time scenarios and remain open for 'Commitment Driven' planning at times and gain maximum business satisfaction.

Please feel free to share your thoughts if any.
Also I'll try to add more references to this post.

Keep Blogging...

Arun Manglick