The Sprint

A Sprint is Scrum's term for an iteration which is a time-boxed period of time, typically 2 to 4 weeks, during which the Team works to turn the Product Backlog items it has selected into an increment of potentially shippable product functionality.

The Sprint length is intended to be long enough to produce something of value and to production quality such that it is worth demonstrating to the Product Owner and stakeholders. Any longer than 4 weeks and the Team will lose agility through the need for artefacts and documentation to support the development process. A Sprint length of 2 weeks is becoming the defacto iteration length for the following reasons:

• Forces teams to operate in an Agile manner rather than "Mini waterfalls"
• Provides more frequent feedback on what they are building
• Reduces the risk of "Building the wrong thing"
• Increases the responsiveness of the team to business change
• Provides more opportunites for the team to inspect and adapt the way they work

The goal and activities for the Sprint are planned at the beginning of each Sprint in the Sprint Planning meeting. At the end of the Sprint the team demonstrate what they have built in the Sprint Review and analyse their own performance and decide how they can improve in the Sprint Retrospective.

The length of Sprint meetings - Planning, Review and Retrospective - are scaled according to the length of the Sprint.

Progress of the Sprint is tracked with the Sprint Backlog and Sprint Burndown chart.