Sprinting in the dark
by Eliot Hill
Sprints allow a team to work in a set, time-boxed period.
This is very simplified summary of what they are and as with many things the context is fundamental, without it the description lacks purpose, why bother working in a time boxed period?.
Sprints are a part of a Scrum framework, often used alongside Agile principles. You can use both together, one or neither for delivering products, each product and goal is different but when choosing to work in sprints as part of scrum, to start a sprint you should always have:
- a backlog that's good enough (not planned for too far in the future but keeps direction and can be broken down in planning)
- a goal (to collectively achieve)
- awareness of individuals working days/availability
- openess on what else
Sprints shouldn't have:
- work included that depends on other teams
- large, unclear tasks that will result in lots of unneccessary meetings