The Scrum Field Guide: Practical Advice for Your First Year

Chapter 23. Sustainable Pace

Our team works at a sustainable pace—You hear it all the time, but what exactly does it mean? Is there a standard pace that all teams should strive to achieve? For example, my wife and I are both runners. Her sustainable pace is a seven-minute mile; mine, though, is more like nine and a half minutes. We can each sustain our own pace for many miles. But if I try to sustain her pace, if I try to run a seven-minute mile, for very long, I get sick—physically ill. Should I be training to reach her pace? Or is mine good enough?

And what does sustainable pace mean for your company? What if a team’s sustainable pace is too slow to reach the company’s goals? Should the team be asked to deliver, even if it means pushing its ...