Bulldozer00's Blog

Rewritten in “old school” terminology, the five Scrum process events can be expressed as follows:

1. Sprint Planning = Requirements definition and capture
2. Sprint = Requirements analysis, design, coding, unit testing, integration testing, code review
3. Daily Stand Up = Daily status meeting
4. Sprint Review = Post-mortem
5. Sprint Retrospective = Continuous process improvement

So, someone with an intentionally warped mind like BD00 may interpret a series of Scrum sprints as nothing more than a series of camouflaged Mini-Waterfalls (MW).

But ya know what? Executing a project as a series of MWs may be a good thing – as long as an arbitrary, fixed-size, time-box is not imposed on the team. After all, since everything else is allowed to dynamically change during a Scrum project, why not the size of the Sprint too?

Instead of estimating what features can be done in the next 30 days, why not simply estimate how many days will be needed to complete the set of features that marks the transition into the next MW? If, during the MW, it is learned that the goal won’t be achieved, then in addition to cancelling the MW outright, two other options can be contemplated:

1. Extend the length of the MW
2. Postpone the completion of one or more of the features currently being worked on