What is the Ideal Length of a Work sprint?

There are many benefits to working in sprints. But what lengths should these sprints have? Should they be long, like a month, or should they be short, like a week?

The right amount of sprint length is important, so we will analyze it in the article below.

1. Why Work in Sprints?

With the rising popularity of agile and in particular the agile methodology of Scrum, more and more people are working in sprints. But what exactly are sprints and what are the benefits of working in sprints?

1.1. What are sprints?

A sprint is a period of intense work, which started by sprint planning and ended by sprint review. In the sprint planning you plan the work you want to accomplish during the sprint. In the sprint execution you focus exclusively on working on what you have planned. In the sprint review you review the work you have accomplished. Thus we have three elements of a sprint:

● Sprint planning

● Sprint execution

● Sprint review

1.2. Benefits of sprint

There are many advantages to working in sprints that are related to the three elements of the sprint.

The sprint planning ensures that the team has a clear goal and knows what to work on. The sprint planning also helps to motivate the whole team by establishing a common vision. The sprint execution ensures that the team is narrowly focused on the work that was planned and does not get side-tracked by additional work.

The sprint review allows the team to show their work and to get feedback. The sprint review also helps the team to see what went well and what can be improved, so to achieve continuous improvement.

2. How Long Should a Sprint Be?

The sprint is limited by a sprint planning and a sprint review meeting. The question now is:

How long should the period between meetings last, that is, the sprint execution period?

2.1. Question of length

Many people working in sprints prefer to have short sprints of 1 to 2 weeks. Other people prefer to have long sprints of 1 to 2 months. There are advantages to both, having short sprints as well as having long sprints.

2.2. Arguments for short sprints

The main arguments for having short sprint are:

● Flexibility

● Shorter meetings

● Less intermittent meetings

● Less roadblocks

● Continuous improvement

2.2.1. Flexibility

The main argument for short sprints is more flexibility. During a sprint the team is not supposed to work on anything that was not planned in the sprint meeting. That means that if changes come up, the team might be stuck with work for the duration of the sprint that is no longer relevant. A short sprint cycle means that the next sprint planning meeting, in which the work focus can be changed, is never far away.

2.2.2. Shorter meetings

With shorter sprint length there is less work to be planned and less to be reviewed and therefore the sprint meetings can take less time.

2.2.3. Less intermittent meetings

Another argument is that with shorter sprint cycles you have more frequent sprint meetings which less is the need for other kinds of meetings besides the sprint meetings.

2.2.4. Less roadblocks

In each sprint meeting potential roadblocks can be removed. So another advantage of short sprints is that there is less potential for roadblocks to delay the work, as the next sprint meeting is always coming up soon.

2.2.5. Continuous improvement

Each sprint review gives feedback to the team so that they can continuously improve. Shorter sprint length and therefore more frequent sprint meetings mean more opportunities to improve.

2.3. Arguments for long sprints

The main arguments for having long sprint are:

● Stability

● Less admin overhead

● Share strategy & vision

2.3.1. Stability

One of the main advantages of long sprints is the stability of staying on track. When things change frequently teams can get frustrated because it takes some time for them to get their teeth into a certain project or task. On the other hand, long sprint periods provide stability so that the team is more productive.

2.3.2. Less admin overhead

Each sprint meeting takes some time for all team members which can result in significant overhead. This is a main reason many teams prefer to have longer sprint cycles and reduce the frequency of the sprint planning and sprint review meetings.

2.3.3. Share strategy & vision

Long sprint cycles allow the team to plan on a longer time horizon and therefore not only cover specific tasks but also cover company strategy. Also, it allows for a unified vision to be built, a vision that motivates the team.

2.4. Optimal sprint length depends on situation

So what is the right length of time for a sprint? The answer is both long and short! In a long sprint you can stay on course for a longer time and you can develop an exciting goal. On the other hand a short sprint means that you are more flexible. It also means you can do a frequent review and adjustments so that you get continuous improvement.

Which of the two is better depends on the situation at hand. We visualize this dependency in the following diagram:

You see that the factors to take into consideration when determining the length of a sprint cycle are:

● Size of the team

● Frequency of meetings

● Changing environment

● Length of sprint meetings

● Horizon of planning

● Location of team

2.4.1. Size of the team

When the size of a team is large i.e. over 10 people the administrative overhead of sprint planning and sprint review meetings becomes large. For that reason you want to have less frequent meetings by having longer sprint cycles.

2.4.2. Frequency of meetings

When you already hold team meetings other than sprint meetings frequently, you have less need for the team to come together in sprint meetings. Therefore, the higher the frequency of other kinds of meetings, the longer the sprint can be.

2.4.3. Changing environment

When the environment is changing frequently you need to ensure that you have a lot of flexibility, while stability has to be sacrificed. Therefore, shorter sprint cycles are better.

2.4.4. Length of sprint meetings

When you want to make the sprint meetings very short i.e. less than 30 minutes you will need to have it more frequently. The short meetings also mean less overhead, so there is less cost in having them frequently. Therefore, the shorter the sprint meetings, the shorter the sprint cycles can be.

2.4.5. Horizon of planning

When you want to plan not only on a specific task level but on a higher strategic level, it is better to have long sprint cycles. While on the other hand, if you only want to plan on a task level, you can have very short sprint cycles.

2.4.6. Location of team

When the whole team is located in one office location and therefore meeting each other everyday, there is less need for the team to come together on a regular basis. Therefore, long sprint cycles make sense. But on the other hand, if the team is located remotely, sprint meetings also serve to increase the cohesion of the team and therefore should be more frequent, meaning shorter sprint cycles.

3. Two Level Sprints

We have seen the advantages of both long and short sprints. So which is better? Or how about we just combine them together? This is the simple yet brilliant answer to the challenge of fixing ideal sprint length.

I have implemented this method since many years in my virtuals teams and have seen the benefits of it. The answer is a two level sprint. So let me explain how we do it:

• We have a high level monthly sprint cycle in which we plan the direction of the project at a higher level over the next month.
• Then we also have weekly cycles in which we plan the direction of the project over the next week. This is done at a lower level, which is not about strategy but more about specific tasks.

3.1. Monthly sprint

At the beginning of each month, more precisely on the first Monday of each month, we have a monthly sprint planning meeting. At this meeting we plan on a more strategic level. Often this meeting is led by the business team that is more familiar than the technical implementation team with clients, investors and product needs.

In the meeting we plan the main objectives for the next months. Afterwards, we also plan the next specific steps to be done over the next week.

On the last Friday of the month we have a sprint review and retrospective meeting. At this meeting each person shows what he has accomplished. We also analyze what went well and what can be improved.

3.2. Weekly sprint

Each Monday we have a 30–45 minute sprint meeting. At this meeting we both review what we did over the last week, as well as plan what we are going to do over the next week.

This meeting is generally not focused on strategy unless there are some important changes. Instead, it just focuses on what tasks were done and what tasks are planned for the next few weeks.

3.3. Advantages of combining two sprint levels

By working in both weekly and monthly sprints we are able to combine all the advantages from both shorter and longer sprint periods. Also, it is an ideal trade-off between flexibility and stability.

Besides these advantages, this sprint model adjusts to the natural cycle established in our societies of week and month. People get paid on a monthly basis, and they think in terms of months. People also think of working in weeks and see weekends as their natural recovery time. So it makes sense to use these natural cycles that people are already using. And by using these two together we can have a larger vision on the monthly cycle and can be flexible in the weekly cycle.

3.4 Two level sprint planning with Workiamo

Working with a two level sprint planning has greatly increased my own personal productivity as well as that of the teams I am working in. However, it does have the potential to cause too much planning overhead. For that reason it is important that tasks can be easily put from monthly tasks list to weekly tasks list and vice versa.

Using traditional project management systems this can easily get complicated. Therefore I developed a focus software which has the two level planning system built into it. So it facilitates planning by month as well as by week and keeps the different tasks lists, backlog, monthly and weekly tasklist all in sync.

As you are reading this article, we let you access it for lifetime for free! In order to do so, you have to register at www.workiamo.com by entering this code: ILOVEWORK