Human/AI attribution
The guide "Scrum in Teams with AI" by Scrum Manager describes this practice as the most significant adaptation of sprint planning for hybrid teams. Without explicit allocation, the team tends to fill the sprint with AI-generation tasks—failing to reserve sufficient capacity for human review—which causes the workflow to collapse at the end of the cycle.
The three estimation levels
Human/AI attribution classifies each backlog item into one of three levels:
| Level | Type | Description | Who does it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Automated | Task the agent can carry out autonomously with minimal supervision. The spec is complete and the agent has everything it needs. | AI agent (with HITL/HOTL supervision according to risk) |
| Level 2 | Human | Task that requires human judgement, organizational context, creativity, or strategic decision-making that AI cannot provide. | Team member |
| Level 3 | Review and integration (R&I) | Human work on AI output: verifying, integrating, validating, and approving what the agent has generated. | R&I task → team member |
How it works in sprint planning
The human/AI attribution flow within Sprint Planning follows these steps:
- The Product Owner presents the items.
- The team classifies each task according to the three levels.
- For level 1 (automated) tasks, the "Definition of Ready for AI" is verified: Does the agent have everything it needs? Is the spec complete? Are the boundaries defined?
- The necessary specs for level 1 tasks are written or refined.
- The sprint is planned, explicitly including R&I tasks (level 3)—not just generation tasks.
- The sprint goal is established with a strategic focus.
Human review of AI output consumes actual team capacity—often more than the generation process itself—and is explicitly planned for, just like any other task.
Common mistake
Filling the sprint solely with level 1 tasks without planning for R&I tasks. The sprint collapses when all the code has been "generated" but no one has been able to review it. This pattern results in increments that cannot be considered "done" at the end of the sprint because they have not met the definition of done.
Resources
🏦 IA aplicada al trabajo ágil [AI Applied to Agile Work, in Spanish]Skill Arena · Scrum Manager
📊 Scrum Master 5.0Free download · Scrum Manager
See also
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