Breaks Between Sprints Indicate a Problem

This post is a follow-up to an earlier article: There Are No Breaks Between Sprints.

Breaks between Sprints indicate a problem. Usually such breaks are filled with planning activities including research, requirements gathering, design & preparation, negotiations & approvals and the problem is threefold:

1. Such plans are based on conjecture (risky and not compatible with Scrum) rather than empiricism (less risky and compatible with Scrum). Those activities are most beneficial when diligently performed by skilled inspectors at the point of the work. The four formal events within each Sprint provide the team and stakeholders adequate opportunity for inspection and ensure that decisions are being made in light of the up-to-date product increment and with respect to current user needs and market conditions.
2. Breaks between Sprints often include activities which do not add value to the product or are entirely unrelated.
   
   
3. Breaks between Sprints defer the delivery of value because the work performed does not result in potentially-releasable increment of “Done” product.

To correct this problem it is important to identify whether any of the effort spent between Sprints is adding value to the product — that is, which activities affect the form, fit, or function of the actual product. If determined to not be value adding, stop the activity entirely — it is waste. If determined to be value adding then the work ought to be part of their Sprints and the Scrum Team may decide that either the activity should be represented and ordered in the Product Backlog, or should be represented in the team’s Definition of Done.

By David Sabine

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