Sprint - Questions

question 1 answered in other topic: https://www.scrum.org/Forums/aft/549

cheers.

Posted By Iman on 01 Dec 2013 06:06 AM
Hi All,

I've got several questions about Sprint.

1. Scrum Guide mentioned that Sprint is time-boxed at 1 month or less. I have a situation whereby at the end of the Sprint, the project left with some bugs. The Scrum Team and stakeholders agree that adding one more week can finish all the remaining issues.
what should I do in this case?
> Add the time-box to 1 more week
> End the Sprint still within 1 month and the next Sprint will be just 1 week
> any other suggestion?

2. When is usually Sprint length is decided?
> During Sprint Planning?
> Product Backlog Refinement?
> ?

3. When is new work (task) is added into the Sprint Backlog?
> anytime during the Sprint
> Daily Scrum

4. Do we have what we called 'Release Sprint' in Scrum? if yes, how many Release Sprint do we usually need?

5. Is the Items on the Product Backlog tend to be the same as in Sprint Backlog?
or just depends?
e.g. during Sprint Planning, we might found some item in Sprint larger that in Product Backlog.

Appreciate your advice.

Cheers.

2. When is usually Sprint length is decided?
> During Sprint Planning?
> Product Backlog Refinement?
> ?

The length of a Sprint is a feature of the Scrum Team's implementation of the Scrum framework. This implementation can be inspected and adapted by the Team, and the event which is provided for this purpose is the Sprint Retrospective. So if the length of a Sprint is deemed by the team to be inappropriate, they do have the ability to change it at this point. Note however that changing Sprint length is a major decision since it breaks the team's rhythm and associated metrics, and it is not to be taken lightly.

As for the *initial* decision as to how long a Sprint should be...that's a good question. Scrum doesn't really provide explicit mechanisms for framework instantion, but it seems reasonable that the first Sprint Planning session be used for this purpose. Once planned, it then can be inspected and (if absolutely necessary) adapted in Retrospectives.

3. When is new work (task) is added into the Sprint Backlog?
> anytime during the Sprint
> Daily Scrum

The team should collaborate to update their Sprint Backlog as and when needed during the Sprint. The Daily Scrum is provided for this purpose, but the team doesn't have to wait until then to do it.

4. Do we have what we called 'Release Sprint' in Scrum? if yes, how many Release Sprint do we usually need?

No, there's no 'Release Sprint', and in Scrum terms to have one would be an anti-pattern. Each increment from each Sprint must be potentially releasable at the discretion of the Product Owner, and in conformance with a suitably robust Definition of Done. Failure to do this means incurring technical debt before a release can be made, and increases batch sizes in a non-Agile way.

5. Is the Items on the Product Backlog tend to be the same as in Sprint Backlog?
or just depends?

A Sprint Backlog will encompass those PBI's which have been drawn from the Product Backlog during Spring Planning along with the plan for their delivery. This plan might exist entirely in the heads of the Development Team, or they might identify tasks for implementing each PBI which are explicitly added to the Sprint Backlog.

Hi Ian,

thanks for your answer. i'm preparing this for my PSM1 and hopefully got good result.

cheers!