About the Sprint…

Check out these facts about a Sprint:

✅ one Sprint has a max. length of up to one month.
✅ Sprints have constant length.
✅ one Sprint takes place after the other. No gaps, no overlapping.
✅ Sprints give cadence, rhythm, and foster simplicity.
✅ a Sprint starts with the Sprint Planning.
✅ a Sprint ends with the Sprint Review and the Sprint Retrospective.

Sprint calendar

How would a calendar for a Sprint look like? There is no one answer. It depends on the team.
Let me illustrate some examples for a 2-week-Sprint:

Example 1

End the Sprint at a Tuesday afternoon and start the next Sprint the very next morning:

In this example the Scrum Team would use the week in between the end and the start of the Sprint for 2 scheduled Refinements and do spontaneous Refinements on demand.

Example 2

In this schedule you see more dates with Refinement activities.

It is up to the Scrum Team to ensure that they do enough Refinement activities that the Product Backlog is prepared for the upcoming Sprint: : adding, splitting, or deleting Product Backlog items, adding information or attributes, changing the order. Typically some Developers would gather and discuss the next items. If questions arise they check with customers or users, or their Product Owner. In other situations the Product Owner would organize a Refinement session for the entire Scrum Team.

Example 3

This example illustrates how a Scrum Team would end one Sprint on a Wednesday morning, and start the next Sprint on the very same day in the afternoon. I have seen Scrum Teams who prefer this.

This example also demonstrates how some Scrum Teams do their Refinement activities on a daily basis.

As you can see with the different examples for Sprint schedules: it depends on the wishes of the Scrum Team. So: adjust your schedule to optimize for your team collaboration, organization, and environment!

What about the Daily Scrum?

I was asked „Do we really need a Daily Scrum even if we do a Review and Retrospective on that day?“

My answer is: „Why not? What makes sense to you?“

I encourage to do the Daily Scrum every Day to align in the Scrum Team! Particularly, if you go into Sprint Review the next moment: this is your chance to align before you talk to your stakeholders – use it!

Where is your team struggling?