What Are Sprints In Scrum? Characteristics Of Sprint In Agile
Posted on September 12, 2010
Filed Under Scrum Tutorial | Leave a Comment
Scrum Framework is time boxed. All the aspects of Scrum such as Sprint, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, Retrospective meeting etc are all time boxed, that is they have to be completed at specific timings. e.g. Sprint is a fixed iteration (2 weeks to 4 weeks) that starts and ends on a specific date whether the work is completed or not. What ever the work is un-finished, will get pushed to the subsequent sprints. There is no successful or failed sprints in Scrum.
-
Sprints are iterations and they are no more than one month each, and take place one after the other without pause.
-
The Sprints are time boxed, they start and end on a specific date whether the work has been completed or not. Sprints can never be extended just because your work is not finished.
-
At the beginning of each Sprint, a cross-functional team of 5 to 7 developers/designers selects items from prioritized product backlog created by product owner and commits on completing the work at the end of the sprint. Team commits to how much to complete and no one interferes with the team. This is called Sprint Planning Meeting. Sprint planning lasts not more than 8 hours for a 4 week sprint.
-
Chosen work items/tasks/user stories never change. Even the product owner should not change. Otherwise, the sprint will be disaster as team will lose focus and none of the committed work will get completed properly. Scrum Master has to protect the team during such forceful act.
-
Daily stand-up meetings happen everyday for 10 to 15 minutes. Everyone in the team says what was done and what will done next. Scrum Master will record how much work is pending from everyone and updates the burndown chart. During Sprint, a chart called Sprint Burndown chart is maintained by the Scrum Master and radiates information to the stake holders on the progress. Burndown chart indicates how much work is remaining and thus gives a picture of the progress.
-
At the end of Sprint, there will be Sprint Review where the team reviews the Sprint along with product owner and stakeholders and demonstrates what it has built. This is the main trigger for “Inspect and Adapt”. Product owner carefully sees the progress and decides whether or not the team has completed the committed tasks. If he/she feels that the work is not complete, the same will get pushed as unfinished items and re-enters the product backlog. Sprint Review generally will be of 2 hour duration for a 4 week Sprint.
-
During sprint review, a small portion of time should be allocated to refine the product backlog based on the leanings from the current sprint.
-
At the end of Sprint, there will also be a Sprint Retrospective meeting that helps the team to review the process used to develop product. This is not about reviewing the built product quality. Retrospective focuses on finding out the best practices and bad practices. Best practices need to be continued and bad ones need to be stopped. Team collectively identifies with the help of Scrum Master. Sprint Retrospective generally will be of 2 hour duration for a 4 week Sprint.
*Visited 3095 times, 6 So far today*Comments
-
About
All about Scrum Framework, Tutorials, Guides, Discussion Forum. KnowScrum.com is maintained by Scrum Certified Industry Experts. Please feel free to participate on Scrum initiatives on KnowScrum.com
-
Search
Leave a Reply