Recently with my team we had a discussion about the use of Scrum and what should be the sprint length.
I was not very polite in presenting my ideas based on experience, so I decided to collect them and use this space to write them down and explain my motivations.
I’m not a Scrum Master and I don’t have any certification about it but I can tell you practically what worked and didn’t work in my previous projects. I have also read several blogs and I agree with this approach.
Let’s start from the beginning, What are Agile and Scrum ?
Agile is a development methodology based on iterative and incremental approach.
Scrum is one of the implementations of agile methodology, is a framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products.
I will immediately answer the question so you don’t have to read everything but I would rather you did.
What should be the Sprint Length?
Simple, for me 2-3 weeks. This approach always worked and is still working. Why ?
- 2 week cycles create and maintain a sense of urgency within the scrum team.
- If sprint lengths are of 4 weeks then chances of the teams losing focus or wandering away is higher.
- Sprint review and retrospectives are far more meaningful when you have 2-3 week sprints.
- When a team is new or developers do not have the same experience/skills, shorter Sprints help the team learn its capacity/velocity faster.