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•     Cognizant 20-20 Insights




Agile Scrum Sprint Length:
What’s Right for You?
   Executive Summary                                      perform design, development and testing within a
                                                          shorter period and produce a quality product.
   When a team begins a project using the Scrum
   approach, one of the first questions that often        Their thinking is, if they have more time, they
   arises is, “how long should our sprints be?” After     will be able to accomplish what they commit to.
   the collective team understands what a sprint is       For teams new to Scrum, there might be reasons
   and how Scrum works, several discussions on the        for choosing a longer duration. Perhaps they
   topic usually ensue.                                   would like some padding, or they lack confidence
                                                          in their ability to deliver in a shorter amount of
   In this white paper, we’ll review the purpose of the
                                                          time. Perhaps they are not sufficiently insulated
   Scrum timebox, the reason why two weeks has
                                                          from the enterprise and have many dependencies
   become the industry standard and some consid-
                                                          on outside teams that cannot respond quickly.
   erations for when another timebox may be appro-
                                                          (“The DBAs have a 36-hour SLA, so we’ll need to
   priate for your particular situation.
                                                          wait…”)

   Timebox Duration Considerations                        Whatever their reasoning, let’s review the
   Teams new to Scrum struggle with questions of          variables and consequences driving the decision.
   duration and expectations of what can be accom-        The Measuring Checkpoint
   plished in a Scrum sprint. Typical questions often
                                                          Sprints in Scrum are unchangeable timeboxes
   arise: “How long should it be? How can you expect
                                                          that provide the team with a “measuring check-
   me to get all that done in that short amount of
                                                          point” for gathering information about progress
   time? How do we know we’ve chosen the right
                                                          and making adjustments to scope, staffing, fore-
   length?”
                                                          casts, etc. With this purpose, the more frequent
   You will hear Scrum experts say that a sprint can      the checkpoint, the more often metrics are
   vary from one to four weeks, depending upon the        gathered and the faster the cycle time for
   project and the team members involved. What’s          the team to inspect and make adjustments,
   appropriate for your project?                          leading to a more efficient process more quickly
                                                          (e.g., do they need a DBA to join the team?). Based
   In Scrum development, it’s common for new teams        on what the team has accomplished, how should
   to pick a timebox at the longer end of the scale       the release plan (the forecast) be updated? What
   because they don’t understand how they could           can management do to help the team achieve




    cognizant 20-20 insights | april 2011
a faster velocity? Note that this checkpoint         room without a cost is a “false truth.” Indeed,
                has nothing to do with the type of project or the    it may provide breathing room at the cost of
                amount of work the team chooses to commit            team velocity. Consider the time change during
                to. Also, for a large company’s projects where a     Daylight Saving Time, when people actually have
                project management office must be included, this     one day a year with 25 hours. How do they spend
                provides the PMO and leadership with business        their “extra” hour? Some may choose to work
                intelligence data from which they can help the       more, others may choose to sleep or rest more,
                team accomplish its goals.                           and others may choose to do more. The point of
                                                                     this simple analogy is that people will adjust to fill
                The Sprint Review (a.k.a. Demo)                      whatever time they have been given.
            The sprint review meeting provides an opportu-
            nity for the team to hear feedback from product          We postulate that the smaller the sprint duration,
            owners, peers and anyone else who attends. The           the faster the engine can run. Smaller durations
                                more often a sprint review           squeeze out the fat and can only run lean. Consider
                                                                     that if the team knows it has up to three weeks
 Not unlike the fixed occurs, the more often feed-                   to perform a task, it may spend time researching
                                back can be provided, incre-
 political timebox of mentally improving the                         a better solution than its “first thought” design.
   U.S. elections, the product. If this occurs on a                  However, if the team only has one week, it must
                                                                     quickly implement what can be accomplished in
  retrospective may shorter cycle time, the cumu-                    the sprint.
                                lative effort of the small
be used as an outlet improvements resulting from
      for individuals’ a series of frequently held                   The Commitment
                                                                     An argument for shorter duration sprints is the
process frustrations, reviews will yield a better                    issue of how the team handles the absence of a
                                product than that of a longer
   not necessarily to cycle time. In fact, late in                   key team member. Regardless of the reason for
  vote anyone out of a project, the team may                         the absence, the general rule is that the team
                                                                     acts as a unit and must pick up the slack to meet
  office, but to allow wish to consider a move to                    its commitment. This places a significant burden
                                one-week sprints to increase
      people to voice the opportunities for feed-                    on the remaining team members for the duration
        their opinion. back as it prepares for a                     of the sprint once the absence begins. In longer
                                production release.                  duration sprints, the team has committed sub-
                                                                     stantially more points than a shorter duration
                The Retrospective                                    sprint, and if a person is out for a portion of
            The retrospective is a key aspect of the inspect-        that longer sprint, the remaining team members
            and-adapt Scrum cycle. The more often a team             must either carry the load longer before they
            pauses to consider how to streamline its process,        can resize velocity or de-scope items to which
            the sooner it will identify process issues, attempt      they’ve committed. We’ve found that, in shorter
            to address them and reach terminal velocity.             duration sprints, when a team member is absent,
                                 Frequent process improve-           teams are more likely to complete the sprint with
    Smaller durations ment meetings also allow for                   the original scope than de-scope it. The reason:
                                 a team to provide feedback to       Teams can “endure pain” for a few days.
     squeeze out the management on productivity
     fat and can only drags, such as spending time                   The Unbroken Think-Stream
              run lean. creating status reports that                  One consideration for longer duration sprints is
                                 no one will use or creating         that software development is, to some degree,
            a business requirements document that no one             more art than science, and it requires a level of
            will read. Not unlike the fixed political timebox of     creativity that cannot be rushed. Certainly, it
            U.S. elections, the retrospective may be used as         seems obvious that if the team performs one-week
            an outlet for individuals’ process frustrations, not     sprints, it has only three actual work days — the
            necessarily to vote anyone out of office, but to         first day is spent planning and designing, and the
            allow people to voice their opinion.                     last day is spent on the review and retrospective.
                                                                     On longer sprint durations, say four weeks, the
                Sprint Planning                                      team has 18 unbroken days for the team think-
                The perception that moving to longer duration        stream. They have time to dream, be creative,
                sprints will reduce pressure and provide breathing   identify high-risk design issues and address them,



                                      cognizant 20-20 insights       2
toss out their first or even second version of an       encountered in the course of developing a
idea and restart again and again before bringing        component, they put all their energy into solving
their ultimate idea to the sprint review. This          it. In this scenario, one possible path has been
degree of creativity and the pursuit of perfection      taken many times by developers. The developer
are not to be found in deadline-driven software         becomes consumed by the
development.                                            challenge and doesn’t report it Another
                                                        as a block to her Scrum master; consideration for
Human Nature and Reality                                after all, she’s smart and, in the
The boots-on-the-ground reality is that the             past, has solved more “hairy” longer duration
same thing is going to happen at the end of the         challenges than this one.            sprints is the time
three-week iteration that happens at the end of
                                                        The catch is that, in a short-dura-
                                                                                              it takes to flesh-out
a one- or two-week iteration: Time allocated for
testing and preparing for the sprint review will        tion sprint cycle, the challenge an epic into a family
be squeezed. What we’ve found is that it’s more         must become visible to the Scrum of fully developed
                                                        master. This is against the devel-
a matter of the team adjusting what it can do
                                                        oper’s nature — she doesn’t want
                                                                                               stories and document
during the iteration duration and setting expec-
tations appropriately among themselves than             to bother the Scrum master with the subtasks
the alternative, which is trying to lengthen the        a “non-issue.” So, what happens? for each.
iteration so the team can finish the stories they       Often, the developer works to
committed to. The “better” solution to this point       solve the challenge right up to the deadline but
is to reduce the amount committed to, break the         fails to finish it per the acceptance criteria, and
stories into smaller tasks, pick up more stories        the product owner is surprised that the func-
opportunistically, deliver functionality earlier in     tionality was not completed in the sprint review.
the iteration and allocate time to test and prepare     There is a danger here; if this behavior occurs in
for the sprint review from the start.                   the context of a longer sprint duration, the oppor-
                                                        tunity cost will be quantified in the form of lower
Procrastination                                         velocity.
One aspect of human nature is for people to
postpone and procrastinate on work that they know       The Story Creation Debacle
they need to do. While this must have a scientific       Another consideration for longer duration sprints
name, let’s affectionately call it “college term-       is the time it takes to flesh-out an epic into a
paper” thinking. Why? The stereotypical college         family of fully developed stories and document
student who is assigned a research paper at the         the subtasks for each. The reality is that some
start of a semester will think he doesn’t need to       topics require lots of time from the subject
start on it right away; the end of the semester (or     matter experts and may need several “reviews”
“term”) is many weeks away. He does other things        with the product owner, his peers
                                                        or other stakeholders before the
and comes back to it about three weeks before it’s                                          A better approach is
due, only to realize that he is going to need more      acceptance criteria for a family
hours than are left to produce a good paper. His        of stories is ready for developers to extend the time to
procrastination will result in a lower quality paper,   and testers to start translating create that family of
                                                        that story into functionality.
with less content or depth on the topic assigned.                                            stories across sprints
The same may happen with a Scrum team with              This is where we need to             and provide updates
a longer duration sprint. It may not “feel” like a      recognize that it will take time to  at the end of each
sprint if the duration is four weeks. Instead of        draft, socialize and refine stories
diligently using the unbroken time for a think-         as the team moves through the        sprint as to where
stream and following a rapid creative-destruc-          story creation process, and we       the group is in
tion cycle, the team slowly starts on the stories,      should forecast upfront that a       the process.
building on its previous sprints’ work but realizing    particular family of stories will
with only a few days left that what it’s built is not   need more than one sprint to complete. For some
adequate.                                               stories, three weeks won’t be enough. In previous
                                                        projects, we’ve found that some story families can
Visibility into Team Challenges                         take up to eight weeks to produce because of the
Professional developers are smart translators           subject matter experts and/or the complex nature
that like to solve puzzles. In the mindset of a         of the topic. With that said, it is not wise to move
stereotypical developer, when a challenge is            the sprint review, retrospective and “metrics



                       cognizant 20-20 insights         3
gathering checkpoint” just because a “story            story, that means it will complete 10 fewer stories
author” team member needs more time to finish          over a six-week period. That represents a signifi-
a family of stories. A better approach is to extend    cant difference in functionality. A product owner
the time to create that family of stories across       would probably balk upon hearing that news.
sprints and provide updates at the end of each
sprint as to where the group is in the process.        In a baseball analogy, the difference between
                                                       an average hitter and a great hitter is only one
Another approach is to establish a checkpoint          additional hit per week. If a team can do the
with one or more business “peer reviewers” that        same — that is, commit to one additional story
would verify that a story is ready for development.    per week — it will raise the bar and complete the
This validation step could also act as a measure-      project with a much better product than what an
ment checkpoint for the rate of story creation,        “average” team would have produced.
which would provide one more data point for
management and the team to understand its              Should the team keep up the pressure, it may
velocity and productivity.                             be able to produce the same as it would in the
                                                       two-week sprints, but it is unlikely it will exceed
Some Metrics to Consider                               that. In other words, on this point, there’s little
Let’s assume for a moment that your Scrum              upside to switching to three weeks but a signifi-
team is struggling through two-week sprints but        cant potential on the downside.
is able to produce 100 story points of velocity
for each sprint. They are struggling because of        Two Weeks: The Standard?
pressure to complete the stories to which they         The two-week sprint duration (10 business days)
committed, but they’re not working weekends to         has become the de facto industry standard.
complete them. However, the testing activities         Why?
are squeezed, and the team doesn’t feel it has the
proper time to prepare for the sprint review. At       The two-week sprint has the best balance of all the
one sprint retrospective, a member proposes that       above factors. It allows for a team to have a small
the team switch to three-week sprints to reduce        amount of creativity with eight days of unbroken
the pressure, perform appropriate testing and          think-stream, and it provides a near-term deadline
prepare for the sprint review. The real issue is       that kills procrastination and forces developers’
that the team is committing to deliver too many        challenges to the surface more quickly. Moreover,
stories in one sprint, and they need to adjust the     this approach is often enough to gather feedback
number downwards. However, let’s consider this         from the sprint review and reflect on the process.
proposal from a simple metrics perspective.            Finally, it sets a pace for measuring checkpoints
                                                       twice a month (leadership usually likes that),
We suggest that moving to three-week sprints           keeps the pressure up and “feels” like a sprint.
does not actually solve the underlying issue. Our
rationale: It is false to extrapolate that the team    What’s right for your project? That’s a decision
will now average 150 points in the new three-week      you’ll need to make. Perhaps you are in a situation
sprints. Typically, the team will drop back a little   where your team members lack experience or
because it perceives that the pressure is less, say    a key skill in a particular area, or your team is
to 130 points in the three-week sprint. The team       struggling with breaking down the stories into
may now “feel” it has breathing room, but it was       tasks, and you conclude that two weeks is just too
bought with a 13% reduction in throughput.             short. (For a summary of various sprint lengths
                                                       and their challenges, see Figure 1.)
In terms of velocity capital over a six-week period,
if the team could average 300 points across            The key with longer duration sprints is making
three two-week iterations, and if they move to         them “feel” like a sprint by keeping up the
two three-week iterations, the forecast is that        pressure; keeping them lean; making sure the
the team will only be able to produce 260 points.      team has challenged themselves; avoiding the
Over this timeframe, the reduction in velocity         pitfalls of procrastination, lack of visibility into
capital will result in 40 points of less functional-   developers’ challenges and the absence of team
ity or fewer defects fixed in the final product. For   members; and allowing story creation to cross
a team with an average of four story points per        sprint boundaries.




                       cognizant 20-20 insights        4
Sprint Length Comparison

                    Challenges                                  1 week                   2 weeks              3 weeks             4 weeks
 In a four-month project, “ceremonial days” for
                                                         32 days                  16 days              11 days             8 days
 sprint planning, review and retrospective
 In a four-month project, minimum number of
                                                         ~16 days                 ~8 days              ~8 days             ~12 days
 days spent testing
 Impact on other team members when a member
 falls absent in the middle of the sprint – length of    A couple of days         Several days         More than a week    A couple of weeks
 the “endurance test”
 Unbroken thinking time, allowing for the team
                                                         3 days                   7 days               12 days             16 days
 to address challenges as they arise
 Visibility into team challenges                         Best                     Second best          Fair                Poor
 Likelihood of falling into the “procrastination trap”   None                     Low                  Medium              High
                                                                                                                           Rare for stories
                                                         Many stories cross       Some stories cross   Few stories cross
 Adaptation to uncertainty in story creation                                                                               to cross sprint
                                                         sprint boundary          sprint boundary      sprint boundary
                                                                                                                           boundary
 Application feedback                                    Best                     Better               Good                Fair
 Process improvement cycle                               Fastest                  Fast                 Frequent            Slow
                                                         Unsustainable            Difficult due to     Escalations
 Adaptation to F500 enterprises that still operate                                                                         Best; few escala-
                                                         without isolation        many escalations     required but less
 in traditional models                                                                                                     tions required
                                                         strategy                 required             frequently

Figure 1




The challenge with shorter duration sprints is                                standard. Note that there is a series of reasons
breaking the stories into small tasks and reas-                               why two weeks has become the default.
sembling them into a unit of work that will be
meaningful to the product owner. Consider this:                               You should ask the question, “if we change to a
In a one-week sprint, the team will have three                                different length sprint, what problem does that
productive days to design, build, test and polish                             solve?” Are there underlying problems, like per-
a component. Given the uncertainty in software                                sonality or behavioral issues that are manifest-
development, this doesn’t allow for much time for                             ing themselves in other ways that would be best
recovery when the unexpected occurs, causing                                  addressed in another way than changing the
velocity to appear uneven across sprints. Also if                             sprint duration? Generally speaking, it is better to
the increment produces too small a delta for the                              set the cadence and have the team adjust to it
product owner to notice the update or change                                  rather than the other way around.
from the last sprint review, then your sprints may
                                                                              No matter what sprint duration your team
be too short.
                                                                              chooses, make sure everyone buys in, then run it
Sprinting Ahead                                                               as lean as you can, and keep in mind the consider-
                                                                              ations raised in this paper.
Consider carefully for what purpose you might
deviate from what has become the two-week




About the Author
Brian Haughton is a Senior Manager in Cognizant’s Advanced Solutions. He is a full-time Agile Scrum
Coach and has both CSM and CSP certifications from the Scrum Alliance. His background includes many
years at a Big-5 consulting firm, with a specific focus on systems integration and content management.
Brian previously worked at major online media and logistics companies. He received a Masters in Math-
ematics from the University of Mississippi and a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi College. He can be
reached at Brian.Haughton@cognizant.com.



                                cognizant 20-20 insights                      5
About Cognizant

Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourc-
ing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck,
New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and
business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 deliv-
ery centers worldwide and approximately 104,000 employees as of December 31, 2010, Cognizant is a member of the
NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 1000 and is ranked among the top performing
and fastest growing companies in the world.

Visit us online at www.cognizant.com for more information.


                                         World Headquarters                  European Headquarters                 India Operations Headquarters
                                         500 Frank W. Burr Blvd.             Haymarket House                       #5/535, Old Mahabalipuram Road
                                         Teaneck, NJ 07666 USA               28-29 Haymarket                       Okkiyam Pettai, Thoraipakkam
                                         Phone: +1 201 801 0233              London SW1Y 4SP UK                    Chennai, 600 096 India
                                         Fax: +1 201 801 0243                Phone: +44 (0) 20 7321 4888           Phone: +91 (0) 44 4209 6000
                                         Toll Free: +1 888 937 3277          Fax: +44 (0) 20 7321 4890             Fax: +91 (0) 44 4209 6060
                                         Email: inquiry@cognizant.com        Email: infouk@cognizant.com           Email: inquiryindia@cognizant.com


© Copyright 2011, Cognizant. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from Cognizant. The information contained herein is
subject to change without notice. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Agile Scrum Sprint Length: What’s Right for You?

  • 1. Cognizant 20-20 Insights Agile Scrum Sprint Length: What’s Right for You? Executive Summary perform design, development and testing within a shorter period and produce a quality product. When a team begins a project using the Scrum approach, one of the first questions that often Their thinking is, if they have more time, they arises is, “how long should our sprints be?” After will be able to accomplish what they commit to. the collective team understands what a sprint is For teams new to Scrum, there might be reasons and how Scrum works, several discussions on the for choosing a longer duration. Perhaps they topic usually ensue. would like some padding, or they lack confidence in their ability to deliver in a shorter amount of In this white paper, we’ll review the purpose of the time. Perhaps they are not sufficiently insulated Scrum timebox, the reason why two weeks has from the enterprise and have many dependencies become the industry standard and some consid- on outside teams that cannot respond quickly. erations for when another timebox may be appro- (“The DBAs have a 36-hour SLA, so we’ll need to priate for your particular situation. wait…”) Timebox Duration Considerations Whatever their reasoning, let’s review the Teams new to Scrum struggle with questions of variables and consequences driving the decision. duration and expectations of what can be accom- The Measuring Checkpoint plished in a Scrum sprint. Typical questions often Sprints in Scrum are unchangeable timeboxes arise: “How long should it be? How can you expect that provide the team with a “measuring check- me to get all that done in that short amount of point” for gathering information about progress time? How do we know we’ve chosen the right and making adjustments to scope, staffing, fore- length?” casts, etc. With this purpose, the more frequent You will hear Scrum experts say that a sprint can the checkpoint, the more often metrics are vary from one to four weeks, depending upon the gathered and the faster the cycle time for project and the team members involved. What’s the team to inspect and make adjustments, appropriate for your project? leading to a more efficient process more quickly (e.g., do they need a DBA to join the team?). Based In Scrum development, it’s common for new teams on what the team has accomplished, how should to pick a timebox at the longer end of the scale the release plan (the forecast) be updated? What because they don’t understand how they could can management do to help the team achieve cognizant 20-20 insights | april 2011
  • 2. a faster velocity? Note that this checkpoint room without a cost is a “false truth.” Indeed, has nothing to do with the type of project or the it may provide breathing room at the cost of amount of work the team chooses to commit team velocity. Consider the time change during to. Also, for a large company’s projects where a Daylight Saving Time, when people actually have project management office must be included, this one day a year with 25 hours. How do they spend provides the PMO and leadership with business their “extra” hour? Some may choose to work intelligence data from which they can help the more, others may choose to sleep or rest more, team accomplish its goals. and others may choose to do more. The point of this simple analogy is that people will adjust to fill The Sprint Review (a.k.a. Demo) whatever time they have been given. The sprint review meeting provides an opportu- nity for the team to hear feedback from product We postulate that the smaller the sprint duration, owners, peers and anyone else who attends. The the faster the engine can run. Smaller durations more often a sprint review squeeze out the fat and can only run lean. Consider that if the team knows it has up to three weeks Not unlike the fixed occurs, the more often feed- to perform a task, it may spend time researching back can be provided, incre- political timebox of mentally improving the a better solution than its “first thought” design. U.S. elections, the product. If this occurs on a However, if the team only has one week, it must quickly implement what can be accomplished in retrospective may shorter cycle time, the cumu- the sprint. lative effort of the small be used as an outlet improvements resulting from for individuals’ a series of frequently held The Commitment An argument for shorter duration sprints is the process frustrations, reviews will yield a better issue of how the team handles the absence of a product than that of a longer not necessarily to cycle time. In fact, late in key team member. Regardless of the reason for vote anyone out of a project, the team may the absence, the general rule is that the team acts as a unit and must pick up the slack to meet office, but to allow wish to consider a move to its commitment. This places a significant burden one-week sprints to increase people to voice the opportunities for feed- on the remaining team members for the duration their opinion. back as it prepares for a of the sprint once the absence begins. In longer production release. duration sprints, the team has committed sub- stantially more points than a shorter duration The Retrospective sprint, and if a person is out for a portion of The retrospective is a key aspect of the inspect- that longer sprint, the remaining team members and-adapt Scrum cycle. The more often a team must either carry the load longer before they pauses to consider how to streamline its process, can resize velocity or de-scope items to which the sooner it will identify process issues, attempt they’ve committed. We’ve found that, in shorter to address them and reach terminal velocity. duration sprints, when a team member is absent, Frequent process improve- teams are more likely to complete the sprint with Smaller durations ment meetings also allow for the original scope than de-scope it. The reason: a team to provide feedback to Teams can “endure pain” for a few days. squeeze out the management on productivity fat and can only drags, such as spending time The Unbroken Think-Stream run lean. creating status reports that One consideration for longer duration sprints is no one will use or creating that software development is, to some degree, a business requirements document that no one more art than science, and it requires a level of will read. Not unlike the fixed political timebox of creativity that cannot be rushed. Certainly, it U.S. elections, the retrospective may be used as seems obvious that if the team performs one-week an outlet for individuals’ process frustrations, not sprints, it has only three actual work days — the necessarily to vote anyone out of office, but to first day is spent planning and designing, and the allow people to voice their opinion. last day is spent on the review and retrospective. On longer sprint durations, say four weeks, the Sprint Planning team has 18 unbroken days for the team think- The perception that moving to longer duration stream. They have time to dream, be creative, sprints will reduce pressure and provide breathing identify high-risk design issues and address them, cognizant 20-20 insights 2
  • 3. toss out their first or even second version of an encountered in the course of developing a idea and restart again and again before bringing component, they put all their energy into solving their ultimate idea to the sprint review. This it. In this scenario, one possible path has been degree of creativity and the pursuit of perfection taken many times by developers. The developer are not to be found in deadline-driven software becomes consumed by the development. challenge and doesn’t report it Another as a block to her Scrum master; consideration for Human Nature and Reality after all, she’s smart and, in the The boots-on-the-ground reality is that the past, has solved more “hairy” longer duration same thing is going to happen at the end of the challenges than this one. sprints is the time three-week iteration that happens at the end of The catch is that, in a short-dura- it takes to flesh-out a one- or two-week iteration: Time allocated for testing and preparing for the sprint review will tion sprint cycle, the challenge an epic into a family be squeezed. What we’ve found is that it’s more must become visible to the Scrum of fully developed master. This is against the devel- a matter of the team adjusting what it can do oper’s nature — she doesn’t want stories and document during the iteration duration and setting expec- tations appropriately among themselves than to bother the Scrum master with the subtasks the alternative, which is trying to lengthen the a “non-issue.” So, what happens? for each. iteration so the team can finish the stories they Often, the developer works to committed to. The “better” solution to this point solve the challenge right up to the deadline but is to reduce the amount committed to, break the fails to finish it per the acceptance criteria, and stories into smaller tasks, pick up more stories the product owner is surprised that the func- opportunistically, deliver functionality earlier in tionality was not completed in the sprint review. the iteration and allocate time to test and prepare There is a danger here; if this behavior occurs in for the sprint review from the start. the context of a longer sprint duration, the oppor- tunity cost will be quantified in the form of lower Procrastination velocity. One aspect of human nature is for people to postpone and procrastinate on work that they know The Story Creation Debacle they need to do. While this must have a scientific Another consideration for longer duration sprints name, let’s affectionately call it “college term- is the time it takes to flesh-out an epic into a paper” thinking. Why? The stereotypical college family of fully developed stories and document student who is assigned a research paper at the the subtasks for each. The reality is that some start of a semester will think he doesn’t need to topics require lots of time from the subject start on it right away; the end of the semester (or matter experts and may need several “reviews” “term”) is many weeks away. He does other things with the product owner, his peers or other stakeholders before the and comes back to it about three weeks before it’s A better approach is due, only to realize that he is going to need more acceptance criteria for a family hours than are left to produce a good paper. His of stories is ready for developers to extend the time to procrastination will result in a lower quality paper, and testers to start translating create that family of that story into functionality. with less content or depth on the topic assigned. stories across sprints The same may happen with a Scrum team with This is where we need to and provide updates a longer duration sprint. It may not “feel” like a recognize that it will take time to at the end of each sprint if the duration is four weeks. Instead of draft, socialize and refine stories diligently using the unbroken time for a think- as the team moves through the sprint as to where stream and following a rapid creative-destruc- story creation process, and we the group is in tion cycle, the team slowly starts on the stories, should forecast upfront that a the process. building on its previous sprints’ work but realizing particular family of stories will with only a few days left that what it’s built is not need more than one sprint to complete. For some adequate. stories, three weeks won’t be enough. In previous projects, we’ve found that some story families can Visibility into Team Challenges take up to eight weeks to produce because of the Professional developers are smart translators subject matter experts and/or the complex nature that like to solve puzzles. In the mindset of a of the topic. With that said, it is not wise to move stereotypical developer, when a challenge is the sprint review, retrospective and “metrics cognizant 20-20 insights 3
  • 4. gathering checkpoint” just because a “story story, that means it will complete 10 fewer stories author” team member needs more time to finish over a six-week period. That represents a signifi- a family of stories. A better approach is to extend cant difference in functionality. A product owner the time to create that family of stories across would probably balk upon hearing that news. sprints and provide updates at the end of each sprint as to where the group is in the process. In a baseball analogy, the difference between an average hitter and a great hitter is only one Another approach is to establish a checkpoint additional hit per week. If a team can do the with one or more business “peer reviewers” that same — that is, commit to one additional story would verify that a story is ready for development. per week — it will raise the bar and complete the This validation step could also act as a measure- project with a much better product than what an ment checkpoint for the rate of story creation, “average” team would have produced. which would provide one more data point for management and the team to understand its Should the team keep up the pressure, it may velocity and productivity. be able to produce the same as it would in the two-week sprints, but it is unlikely it will exceed Some Metrics to Consider that. In other words, on this point, there’s little Let’s assume for a moment that your Scrum upside to switching to three weeks but a signifi- team is struggling through two-week sprints but cant potential on the downside. is able to produce 100 story points of velocity for each sprint. They are struggling because of Two Weeks: The Standard? pressure to complete the stories to which they The two-week sprint duration (10 business days) committed, but they’re not working weekends to has become the de facto industry standard. complete them. However, the testing activities Why? are squeezed, and the team doesn’t feel it has the proper time to prepare for the sprint review. At The two-week sprint has the best balance of all the one sprint retrospective, a member proposes that above factors. It allows for a team to have a small the team switch to three-week sprints to reduce amount of creativity with eight days of unbroken the pressure, perform appropriate testing and think-stream, and it provides a near-term deadline prepare for the sprint review. The real issue is that kills procrastination and forces developers’ that the team is committing to deliver too many challenges to the surface more quickly. Moreover, stories in one sprint, and they need to adjust the this approach is often enough to gather feedback number downwards. However, let’s consider this from the sprint review and reflect on the process. proposal from a simple metrics perspective. Finally, it sets a pace for measuring checkpoints twice a month (leadership usually likes that), We suggest that moving to three-week sprints keeps the pressure up and “feels” like a sprint. does not actually solve the underlying issue. Our rationale: It is false to extrapolate that the team What’s right for your project? That’s a decision will now average 150 points in the new three-week you’ll need to make. Perhaps you are in a situation sprints. Typically, the team will drop back a little where your team members lack experience or because it perceives that the pressure is less, say a key skill in a particular area, or your team is to 130 points in the three-week sprint. The team struggling with breaking down the stories into may now “feel” it has breathing room, but it was tasks, and you conclude that two weeks is just too bought with a 13% reduction in throughput. short. (For a summary of various sprint lengths and their challenges, see Figure 1.) In terms of velocity capital over a six-week period, if the team could average 300 points across The key with longer duration sprints is making three two-week iterations, and if they move to them “feel” like a sprint by keeping up the two three-week iterations, the forecast is that pressure; keeping them lean; making sure the the team will only be able to produce 260 points. team has challenged themselves; avoiding the Over this timeframe, the reduction in velocity pitfalls of procrastination, lack of visibility into capital will result in 40 points of less functional- developers’ challenges and the absence of team ity or fewer defects fixed in the final product. For members; and allowing story creation to cross a team with an average of four story points per sprint boundaries. cognizant 20-20 insights 4
  • 5. Sprint Length Comparison Challenges 1 week 2 weeks 3 weeks 4 weeks In a four-month project, “ceremonial days” for 32 days 16 days 11 days 8 days sprint planning, review and retrospective In a four-month project, minimum number of ~16 days ~8 days ~8 days ~12 days days spent testing Impact on other team members when a member falls absent in the middle of the sprint – length of A couple of days Several days More than a week A couple of weeks the “endurance test” Unbroken thinking time, allowing for the team 3 days 7 days 12 days 16 days to address challenges as they arise Visibility into team challenges Best Second best Fair Poor Likelihood of falling into the “procrastination trap” None Low Medium High Rare for stories Many stories cross Some stories cross Few stories cross Adaptation to uncertainty in story creation to cross sprint sprint boundary sprint boundary sprint boundary boundary Application feedback Best Better Good Fair Process improvement cycle Fastest Fast Frequent Slow Unsustainable Difficult due to Escalations Adaptation to F500 enterprises that still operate Best; few escala- without isolation many escalations required but less in traditional models tions required strategy required frequently Figure 1 The challenge with shorter duration sprints is standard. Note that there is a series of reasons breaking the stories into small tasks and reas- why two weeks has become the default. sembling them into a unit of work that will be meaningful to the product owner. Consider this: You should ask the question, “if we change to a In a one-week sprint, the team will have three different length sprint, what problem does that productive days to design, build, test and polish solve?” Are there underlying problems, like per- a component. Given the uncertainty in software sonality or behavioral issues that are manifest- development, this doesn’t allow for much time for ing themselves in other ways that would be best recovery when the unexpected occurs, causing addressed in another way than changing the velocity to appear uneven across sprints. Also if sprint duration? Generally speaking, it is better to the increment produces too small a delta for the set the cadence and have the team adjust to it product owner to notice the update or change rather than the other way around. from the last sprint review, then your sprints may No matter what sprint duration your team be too short. chooses, make sure everyone buys in, then run it Sprinting Ahead as lean as you can, and keep in mind the consider- ations raised in this paper. Consider carefully for what purpose you might deviate from what has become the two-week About the Author Brian Haughton is a Senior Manager in Cognizant’s Advanced Solutions. He is a full-time Agile Scrum Coach and has both CSM and CSP certifications from the Scrum Alliance. His background includes many years at a Big-5 consulting firm, with a specific focus on systems integration and content management. Brian previously worked at major online media and logistics companies. He received a Masters in Math- ematics from the University of Mississippi and a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi College. He can be reached at Brian.Haughton@cognizant.com. cognizant 20-20 insights 5
  • 6. About Cognizant Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourc- ing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 deliv- ery centers worldwide and approximately 104,000 employees as of December 31, 2010, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 1000 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com for more information. World Headquarters European Headquarters India Operations Headquarters 500 Frank W. Burr Blvd. Haymarket House #5/535, Old Mahabalipuram Road Teaneck, NJ 07666 USA 28-29 Haymarket Okkiyam Pettai, Thoraipakkam Phone: +1 201 801 0233 London SW1Y 4SP UK Chennai, 600 096 India Fax: +1 201 801 0243 Phone: +44 (0) 20 7321 4888 Phone: +91 (0) 44 4209 6000 Toll Free: +1 888 937 3277 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7321 4890 Fax: +91 (0) 44 4209 6060 Email: inquiry@cognizant.com Email: infouk@cognizant.com Email: inquiryindia@cognizant.com © Copyright 2011, Cognizant. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from Cognizant. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.