Definition of Sprint:
A sprint is a time-boxed iteration during which a user story or product backlog item (PBI) is transformed into a potentially shippable product. Each sprint is assigned a fixed amount of time during a project, which could be anywhere from one week to one month, but typically lasts two weeks.
Use of Sprints:
Each sprint starts with a planning meeting including the product owner and the development team to discuss the workload that can be realistically accomplished while still meeting the Product Owner’s and other stakeholder’s requirements. The Scrum Master and development team determine the sprint length which should be consistent for the entire project. At the end of the sprint, the team demonstrates the result of the iteration to the product owner and stakeholders during the review meeting. They provide feedback to the team and the product owner either accepts or rejects the product, based on the acceptance criteria established in the sprint planning meeting. Once all the sprints for a project are completed, the team should be ready to release a final product.
Benefits of Sprints:
- Keep teams from feeling overwhelmed by a huge workload.
- Improve predictability and reliability for customer deliverables.
- Shorten feedback loops.
- Keep teams from getting too far into development of certain tasks before problems are found.