Let's resolve two distinct sprint issues that have repeated several times in various Scrum teams:
1) Team member who was counted on has left the team, got sick, had to work on new critical priority tasks not anticipated with the sprint = sprint fails
2) All team members are accounted for and are working but the sprint burndown shows the team is late halfway through the sprint = sprint fails
1) What do we do when team resources change during a sprint?
Sprint grooming. This is an unofficial Scrum team meeting organized by ScrumMaster with a single purpose: accommodate the sprint tasks to change in Scrum team resources
Specifically if the team has lost a team member, organize a quick team meeting and see how many hours are taken away from the sprint starting from the current date until the end of the sprint, then just remove corresponding number of tasks from the sprint bottom up (lowest priority ones)
Similarly if the team has gained a new team member, organize a team meeting and see how many additional hours you have gained until the end of the sprint, then just append that many tasks to the sprint
a) Don't change team Projected hours - leave the original burndown graph line intact for comparison as all changes will be immediately reflected in the Actual line
b) Do mention to Product Owner in daily Scrum summary that the sprint has been groomed and how many hours have been taken away or added to the sprint
2) What do we do when we are obviously running late (above the Projected line) midway through the sprint?
Roll up your sleeves and burn some midnight oil to catch up ;) Remember that the whole team has taken part during the Sprint planning meeting to estimate work ahead and that you had plenty of chances to include research and analysis tasks to get better sense of work needed. There's plethora of reasons why you're behind but there's only one solution - switch into higher gear to catch up
a) Don't perform sprint grooming in this case unless team resources have changed
b) Do include detailed description to Product Owner in daily Scrum summary what you are planning to do to catch up and what have you done already
c) Don't ignore #b ;) all daily Scrum summaries must include Catching up notes section if you are running late in the second half of the sprint
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