Sprint In an Agile Framework – How it works:

Sprint in agile is characterized by many events and activities. Below are the key items based on how Sprint works in an agile framework:

• Sprint Planning Meeting: The Sprint planning meeting is done at the beginning of the Sprint to define the primary purpose and goal of the Sprint, which can be achieved at the end of the Sprint. The meeting is attended by the Scrum Team which includes the Product Manager, Development Team and Scrum Master. This meeting is timeboxed to 2 hours or less per week of sprint duration.
• Sprint Backlog Items: During the Sprint Planning meeting the Scrum team collaboratively selects and commits to a set of product backlog items (PBIs) referred to as Sprint Backlog, which are agreed upon to be completed at the end of the Sprint.
• Definition of Done: After the list of product backlog items is added to Sprint Backlog, the team creates the ‘Definition of Done’. This specifies the set of criteria to be considered complete and ready to be shipped. This definition ensures the completeness and quality of the items completed during the Sprint.
• Sprint Implementation and Progress Review: When a Sprint begins from a specified start date, every day till the specified end date, the development team works towards the completion of Sprint backlog items until all items are completed. The Sprint progress is updated daily to the Scrum Team and all the stakeholders each day. The progress can also be reviewed from a Burndown chart, which shows the amount of work completed as of the current date and the total work remaining for the remaining Sprint duration. Generally, scrum teams use a product management tool, which provides progress updates and charts like burndown charts.
• Daily Standup or Daily Scrum meeting: Every day the Scrum Team meets for 15 minutes or less, possibly at the same time during a Sprint and discusses what was done the day before and what is planned for the day as per the Sprint Backlog items and if any challenges are encountered. This is called the Daily Standup or Daily Scrum meeting and is an integral part of Agile Scrum.
• Sprint Review Meeting: The Sprint review meeting is help at the end of the Sprint, attended by all stakeholders, customers and the into Product Owner. The purpose of the meeting is to demo the completed work to the stakeholders and customers to validate if the Sprint goal has been met. All review and feedback received for any adjustments and additional changes will be incorporated to future Sprints.
• Sprint Retrospective Meeting: This Retrospective meeting happens after the Sprint Review meeting and before the next Sprint Planning meeting.
• End of Sprint: After the Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings, the current Sprint concludes. Any improvement or additional changes suggested are carried over to the future Sprints. This marks the end of the current sprint and the beginning of the next sprint in a sprint cycle.

Benefits of working in sprints:

1. Faster Delivery of Value:

Sprints enable faster delivery and shorter time-to-market. This helps scrum teams to deliver potentially shippable product increments at the end of each sprint iteration. This enables deliver value based on quicker response to market changes and customer feedback.

2. Increased focus and motivation:

Sprint enables teams to stay focused on the shorter duration goals, which leads to increased motivation and productivity.

3. Higher Quality Deliverables:

Sprint helps to identify problems early on, which leads to improved quality delivery.

4. Increased flexibility:

Sprint enables teams to adapt to changes in requirements, customer feedback and changing market conditions.

5. Reduced Risk:

Sprint consists of small and manageable pieces of work that reduce risks associated with a long monolithic development process. sprint iterations, teams can identify and mitigate risks more effectively.

6. Measurable Progress:

The team can track the progress of the sprint and measure planned versus completed sprint backlog items to gauge team velocity. This leads to data-driven decisions to plan future commitments and resource allocation.

7. Increased customer satisfaction:

Sprints deliver work increments of product regularly which helps customers to view progress instead of waiting till the end of longer duration developments. This helps to keep customers engaged and satisfied with the progress.

8. Improved communication and collaboration:

Sprints foster a collaborative environment for teams to work closely and communicate quickly and effectively to achieve sprint goals.

Essentials to running a successful sprint:

Following are the elements and best practices to ensure a successful Sprint in agile scrum:

1. Well-defined sprint goal:

Have a clear and well-defined sprint goal for the team to achieve at the end of a sprint. The sprint goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

2. Prioritized Product Backlog:

The product owner should maintain a prioritized and ordered list of product backlog items ready to be selected during sprint planning meeting for the next sprint.

3. Effective Sprint Planning:

All sprint planning meetings should be organized and time boxed. During the planning meeting the development team collaborates with the Product owner to select the backlog items based on the capacity and team velocity.

4. Collaborative sprint execution:

All cross-functional team members should work closely together to complete the selected items. Daily the team should review progress together and identify any road-blocks to be resolved quickly.

5. Be Realistic and Transparent:

The team should be realistic in defining the amount of work and not overcommit.

The team should be transparent to share information about any changes and progress of the sprint regularly and keep everyone informed.

5. Hold daily standup meetings:

The Scrum team should hold daily standup meetings at a specified time to review previous days’ work and what the team will be working on that day. During the standup call the team members should also bring up any impediments or progress blockers to be resolved

6. Sprint review meeting:

At the end of the sprint, the completed work should be reviewed with the stakeholder and receive the feedback.

7. Definition of Done (DoD):

Verify and adhere to the agreed-upon Definition of done at the end of the sprint. This sets the quality and ensures the delivered backlog items are potentially shippable.

8. Hold a retrospective meeting:

After the completion and acceptance of the definition of done, of a spirit, the team should meet to reflect on the completed spirit to identify what went well and what needs improvement. This will help the team to continuously improve the process and deliver better results in future sprints.

Sprint is a fixed-length iteration and an agile scrum event, during which a cross-functional scrum team works to complete a set amount of work. Generally, a sprint is time-boxed to 2 to 4 weeks duration. Sprint breaks down complex tasks in product or project development to shorter duration with a well-defined sprint goal, and it results in a potentially shippable Product Increment (PI).