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Sprint Lengths - 2 week vs 30 days

Asked 2008-11-05T14:44:36.053
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I want to implement Scrum, but I can't decide on a Sprint length. Ken Schwaber seems to relate that 30 days it the defacto... but I can't imagine waiting 30 days without the possibility of changing direction or reprioritizing.

Our projects usually only last 1-3 months using the waterfall method and moving to Scrum would probably mean less opportunity to fine tune.

I was thinking about 1 week sprints, but this seems like Scrum Micro Management.

Having 2 week sprints would probably be ideal, but I want to know if others out there were able to implement this successfully. What are the downsides? Is it more work/less work/same about of work to manage a team with shorter sprints?

BTW... 3 week sprints seem odd to me, who does a 3 week sprint? Why not just make it 4 weeks. ;)

project-management scrum project-planning
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3 Answers

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I like two weeks. It forces a reasonable time box on problems yet lets you see results at a reinforcing pace. 30 days is forever. One week could easily be the right rhythm for a fast moving product like a website.

answered 2008-11-05T14:50:32.420
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I worked on 1,2,3 and 4 week sprints. 1 week sprint is too short to complete the team commitments, 2 made is ideal, when i tried to implement 3 or 4 week sprint we can not utilize the QA team effectively. ( QA will have more slack time in first week )

answered 2012-03-26T06:35:50.537
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The product owner should allways have the opportunity to change prioritations and directions. One of the purposes with SCRUM is to embrace changes and let the product owner be the responsible for priority by looking at the business needs and developement team responsible for delivery on time.

So even if you have a 3-week sprint, doesnt meen that the product owner has to wait 3 weeks if he find out something that (possibly) is going to break the sprint.

In some rare cases you have to stop a sprint in the middle and create a new because of new information or new prioritations.

answered 2008-11-05T15:13:25.730

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