A sprint is a timeboxed iteration/ event of a continuous development cycle. Planned work has to be done within the sprint that would be later subjected to review. This is one of the significant terms used in Scrum Agile Technology. Sprint literally means, a short race at a full speed. Generally, teams define a shorter duration for a Sprint. Let us say about two-four weeks.
‘Sprint Goal’ can be defined as the team collectively setting their targets along with the Product Owner, while they plan their work in ‘Sprint Backlog’.
Every Sprint begins with two planning sessions. These sessions define the content of the sprint-
- The What meeting
- The How meeting
The integration of these two meetings is defined as the Sprint Planning meeting.
In the What meeting, the scrum team commits to the stories from the Scrum Product Backlog. And this makes use of a How meeting for breaking the committed user stories into smaller fragments and concrete tasks. Eventually, leading to the beginning of implementation.
A Sprint Review Meeting is conducted during the end of the sprint to let the Scrum Product Owner have a check whether all the committed items are implemented correctly and are complete as well.
Furthermore, a Sprint Retrospective meeting is conducted with an objective to check and improve the project execution process. To analyse-
- What was good during the sprint?
- What should be improved?
- What should be continued as it is?
A Daily Stand-up meeting, also known as Daily Scrum Meeting happens during the Sprint. This short meeting is to help self- organisation of the team and to update the status of the items.
Sprints have compatible durations throughout a development effort. Straightaway after the conclusion of the previous sprint, a newsprint starts. It is noteworthy to mention that during the sprint,
- Any changes that would endanger the sprint goal will not be made.
- Quality goals do not decline
- The scope may be renegotiated and clarified between the Development Team and the Product Owner.
Each sprint can be contemplated as a project with not more than a month horizon. Similar to projects, sprints are also used to accomplish a set of goals. Every sprint has a design goal, a clear objective of what is to be built, and a flexible plan.
Sprints are generally limited to a calendar month. Whenever a sprint’s horizon is longer, the definition of what is being built could be changed, complexities might rise and risks may increase.
Note: This post is originally published on Agilemania.
