Fixing Your Scrum

Let’s Change the Sprint Length

A sprint’s duration is limited to one calendar month or less. Keeping the duration of a sprint consistent during a development effort establishes a cadence. A consistent time box also helps the team provide consistent forecasts to the product owner and stakeholders. And it offers the Scrum team a way to easily interpret a consistent set of data around how the team works and the complexities they’re facing.

Once a sprint has started, its length can’t change. We don’t make them shorter because we completed all of our work done sooner, and we don’t make them longer because we’re not quite done. Once we decide a sprint length or set a cadence, it’s a rhythm, it’s a heartbeat, it’s how we space out our feedback loops. ...