The heart of Scrum is a Sprint, a time-box of one month or less during which a “Done”, useable, and potentially releasable product Increment is created. Sprints have consistent durations throughout a development effort. A new Sprint starts immediately after the conclusion of the previous Sprint.
Sprints contain and consist of the Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, the development work, the Sprint Review, and the Sprint Retrospective.
During the Sprint:
- No changes are made that would endanger the Sprint Goal;
- Quality goals do not decrease; and,
- Scope may be clarified and re-negotiated between the Product Owner and Development Team as more is learned.
Each Sprint may be considered a project with no more than a one-month horizon. Like projects, Sprints are used to accomplish something. Each Sprint has a goal of what is to be built, a design and flexible plan that will guide building it, the work, and the resultant product increment.
Sprints are limited to one calendar month. When a Sprint’s horizon is too long the definition of what is being built may change, complexity may rise, and risk may increase. Sprints enable predictability by ensuring inspection and adaptation of progress toward a Sprint Goal at least every calendar month. Sprints also limit risk to one calendar month of cost.
The What is Scrum Blog Series are excerpts from the Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. Offered for license under the Attribution Share-Alike license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
- Scrum Foundations Course Video Series
- An Introduction to Scrum
- What Are the 3 Pillars of Scrum?
- What are the 5 Scrum Values?
- What is a Scrum Team?
- What is a Scrum Product Owner?
- What is a Scrum Development Team?
- What is the Ideal Size of a Scrum Development Team?
- What is a Scrum Master?
- What are the Scrum Events?
- What is a Sprint?
- Who can cancel a Sprint?
- What is Sprint Planning?
- What is a Sprint Goal?
- What is a Daily Scrum?
- What is a Sprint Review?
- What is a Sprint Retrospective?
- What are the Scrum Artifacts?
- What is a Product Backlog?
- What is Product Backlog Refinement or Grooming?
- What is a Sprint Backlog?
- What is a Product Increment?
- What is a Definition of “Done”?
- Who is Monitoring Progress?
- The Importance of Artifact Transparency
- Scrum in a Nutshell
- Product Backlog Refinement in a Nutshell
- Sprint Planning in a Nutshell
- Daily Scrum in a Nutshell
- Sprint Review in a Nutshell