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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. ;)
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You can have shorter or longer sprints depending on the team's needs and product demands. As the team progresses and becomes more efficient at delivering business value faster, it may reduce a sprint from 2-weeks to 1-week. The first step is to ensure the team will be able to keep a velocity of deploying once per week.
Sprint planning should be constrained no more than two hours for each week of the sprint. So, for example, the sprint planning meeting for a two-week sprint would be no longer than four hours.
To start, we are keeping our Sprints at 2 weeks (10 business days). Let's say there is a public holiday in a week: then we are left with 9 business days.
We're wired for short-term success In that sense, two-week long sprints feed into our very biology: generally, we're more capable of setting and executing plans in the short term, than we are in the long term.
I've worked on teams doing 1, 2 and 4 week sprints. It really is dependent on your organization. I prefer 1 or 2 week sprints. The current team I'm running is at 4 week sprints because we are coordinating efforts of 12 different products. I'm looking to move them to 2 week iterations soon.
The key thing to defining length is getting to "done, done". For some teams, this means in production. For others, it may mean verified by the business to meet their needs using an internal release. I'd start by defining done, done, then looking at how to structure your sprints around that. Ideally all stories are getting to done at the end of the sprint - and you aren't just doing Scrummerfall.
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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.
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