Sprint

A Sprint is a timeboxed iteration in Scrum, typically one to four weeks, during which teams commit to completing specific work and delivering potentially shippable product increment. This consistent rhythm creates predictability, enables regular feedback, and maintains sustainable pace. Each sprint begins with Sprint Planning where team commits to sprint goal and backlog items, continues with daily standups for coordination, includes ongoing development and testing, and ends with Sprint Review demonstrating completed work and Sprint Retrospective for process improvement. The sprint timebox is fixed, providing hard deadline that forces prioritization and scope management. If work isn't completed, it doesn't extend the sprint but returns to backlog for future consideration. Sprint goals provide focus, describing what the sprint aims to achieve beyond just completing stories. The goal guides decisions when unexpected issues arise. Typical sprint lengths are two weeks balancing feedback frequency with meaningful progress time. Shorter sprints provide faster feedback but higher ceremony overhead. Longer sprints risk delayed feedback but enable deeper focus. Benefits of sprints include regular delivery cadence, predictable planning rhythm, forced prioritization within timebox, frequent feedback and course correction, sustainable pace, and celebration of progress. Challenges include maintaining discipline when pressure mounts, managing unfinished work, handling urgent requests mid-sprint, and achieving consistent velocity. Best practices include keeping sprint length consistent, protecting sprint commitments from changes, maintaining sustainable pace not heroics, ensuring work is truly done, and respecting sprint boundaries. Common anti-patterns include regularly overcommitting creating stress, frequently interrupting sprints with urgent requests, carrying unfinished work without visibility, or treating sprints as mere time divisions without meaningful rhythm. Product managers should respect sprint commitments, avoid mid-sprint changes, provide clarity for upcoming sprints, and use sprint reviews for feedback. Strong sprint discipline creates predictable delivery rhythm while maintaining flexibility to adapt direction based on learning each sprint.