Quote
“With scrum, a product is built in a series of iterations called sprints that break down big, complex projects into bite-sized pieces”
- A short time-boxed period is when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work.
- Many associate scrum sprints with agile, but they are not the same thing. Scrum is a framework, agile is a set of principles.
- Sprints help teams follow the agile principle of delivering working software frequently and responding to change quickly (over following a plan).
- Choosing the right work items for a sprint is a collaborative effort between the product owner, scrum master, and the development team.
- The Product Owner discusses the objective that Sprint should achieve and the Product Backlog items that will help to achieve the Sprint goal.
Sprint Lifecycle
Do's
- Make sure the team sets and understands the sprint goal and how success will be measured. This is the key to keeping everyone aligned and moving forward toward a common destination.
- Do ensure you have a well-groomed backlog with your priorities and dependencies in order.
- Ensure you have a good understanding of Sprint Velocity, and that it reflects things like leave and team meetings.
- Do use the sprint planning meeting to flesh out intimate details of the work that needs to get done.
- Leave out work where you won’t be able to get the dependencies done, like work from another team, designs, and legal sign-off.
Don'ts
- Don’t pull in too many stories, overestimate velocity, or pull in tasks that can’t be completed in the sprint.
- Don’t forget about quality or technical debt. Make sure to budget time for QA and non-feature work, like bugs and engineering health.
- Don’t let the team have a fuzzy view of what’s in the sprint. Nail it down, and don’t focus so much on moving fast that you forget to make sure everyone’s moving in the same direction.
- Don’t take on a large amount of unknown or high-risk work. Break down stories that are large or have high uncertainty, and don’t be afraid to leave some of that work for the next sprint.