Sprint zero in scrum. Scrum Myths: It is ok to have a Sprint 0, Design Sprint, Hardening Sprint…

Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have paused all purchases and training in and from Russia. Read Statement. Subscribe to our blog by signing up for the Scrum. Ian Mitchell. I remember going on a PRINCE2 course a few years ago, and trying to determine how this celebrated stage-gated framework might be applied to an agile mode of delivery. I was employed in the UK public sector at the time, and I had come to know how instrumental “PRINCE2 compliance” can be to the striking of a defensive organizational posture.

When all eventually fails you must be able to show that you followed appropriate procedure. And so it was that I eagerly sought out equivalences between work packages and increments, and between management-by-exception and the supposed empowering of teams.

None of this changed anything those teams would do on the ground. I came up with all sorts of anachronistic mappings like this – irrelevant to value delivery, yet of indispensable value during a government audit. Compliance is a muddied conceit at the best of times and it can provide an enterprising knave with considerable sport. What I learned from these high-jinks was how mutable “value” can be, and how easily a system ostensibly based on value can be gamed.

Where real value is not being delivered incrementally, some proxy offering will typically be resorted to instead. For example, the generation of project management documents will surrogate for deferred value in most organizations, more or less by default. So insidious is this swindle that these documents are shamelessly referred to as “products”, for all the world as if a “Highlight Report” or “End Stage Report” generates customer delight and evinces value to consumers.

In truth such artifacts are nothing more than promissory notes for actual value to be remitted later Framing these devices as “management products” arguably says more about certain parties who abstract themselves away from the hard grit of engineering, but who nevertheless wish to characterize themselves as being productive.

Genuine value can only be attested to by the delivery, however marginally incremental, of actual working product. That’s the key to empirical process control and the realization of an agile enterprise. Of course, this gaming of “value” is only rarely acknowledged as being duplicitous or contrary to an agile way-of-working.

Those who are involved in the game, whether they be managers or developers, are so used to a lack of of empirical control that its absence can hardly be missed when an agile initiative is attempted. When reminded of the manifesto principle that “working software is the primary measure of progress”, it may seem fair to them to dissemble, on the grounds that current circumstances are special and that other measures of progress are not ruled out.

The idea of what is meant by “value” can remain as distant from empiricism as it has always been, irrespective of any lip service paid to agility or any mappings conjured up for that purpose. Nowhere is this more evident than in the relationship between industry and the “Sprint Zero” antipattern.

The idea behind “Sprint Zero” is that, where initialization demands time and effort before any value can be delivered, it would be reasonable to account for this in terms of a Sprint of some kind. Remember that the Scrum Guide does not offer a prescription for essential set-up work.

A Sprint appears to be a whirling grindstone where there is no initial momentum to be overcome. The economy of the Scrum Framework can look like an exercise in cartoon physics to those who are new to it.

They find themselves up against real-world constraints in a real-world situation, and look in vain for specific guidance or at least some sort of clue. How do we get things started in an enterprise environment? To them a Sprint, however inappropriately, may appear to be the only means through which initialization can be accommodated at all.

There has to be something like a Sprint Zero, they reckon. There’s nothing else going. This problem is an old one, and it was debated by two of the Agile Manifesto signatories back in In September of that year Alistair Cockburn remarked :. I have a sneaking feeling that someone was pressed about his use of Scrum when he did something that had no obvious business value at the start, and he invented “Oh, that was Sprint Zero!

Any work that must be done before a Sprint is not therefore a Sprint, and it ought to be minimized as far as possible. Indeed, Professional Scrum training currently remonstrates against any use of the term “Sprint Zero”. For example the Scrum. C Overall planning, base system architecture, base design, version control and continuous integration setup.

D Establish base system architecture and design, install version control and continuous integration setup. Now, the bald claim that a zero-indexed Sprint cannot even exist may seem rather harsh. After all a Scrum Team may describe or number a Sprint in any way it cares to That’s the critical problem with “Sprint Zero” though. A sham Sprint, where no releasable value is provided at all and only setup work is undertaken, is endemic along with that particular term which is used to describe it.

Perhaps the best way to deal with the “Sprint Zero” antipattern is indeed head-on, and to dismiss the very artifice out-of-hand. Is it truly an antipattern though? It’s important to distinguish an antipattern from something which we may just not happen to agree with.

There should be more bad consequences deriving from an antipattern than any good ones, and a solution to the problem ought to exist. The weakening of empirical process control, and the delayed delivery of value, might reasonably be identified as negative outcomes of a so-called “Sprint Zero” when all we get out of it is a fake agile wrapper for set-up work. There is also a danger in norming the idea of a Sprint which does not yield a product increment.

Mike Cohn has objected to Sprint Zero on these grounds. Mike thinks it’s important to understand “why having something potentially shippable is a central tenet of Scrum”. He opines that this tenet should be applied in an “honest” way. Perhaps it’s this sentiment which really gets to the heart of the matter.

A Sprint which does not yield an increment of empirical value cannot really be a “Sprint”. Even if nothing else about it were held to be objectionable, the subversion of the term for non-shippable work is inherently dishonest. Any Sprint which does not deliver an increment of value, no matter how small, ought then to be dismissed as a canard. The ability to exercise empirical process control will simply not be there. Yet a “Sprint Zero” will often be appealed to on the grounds of pragmatism and the lack of a clear alternative.

Indeed, the concern of what to do about pre-delivery initialization does not go away just because the term “Sprint” ought not to be commandeered for it.

What about those many things which must be done before any “real” value can be evidenced? Essential precursory activities can include the drafting of a Product Backlog, the determination of architectural foundations, the resourcing of infrastructure, and the recruitment of those agile team members who would deliver value in the first place. There can be many enablers to agile practice which must be brought into play.

What then is the solution for dealing with them? Part of the answer, of course, lies in minimizing start-up work as far as possible. The longer the empirical delivery of value is put in delay, the greater the leap-of-faith we will need to take when making any investment. We can call a set-up stage whatever we like, but not a Sprint. It is the minimum enabler to start Sprinting properly.

If it is envisioned that multiple teams must work on a product, think about commencing real development with just one of those teams in place. Concentrate on ensuring that good agile hygienes are practised by just one team first, and only then think about scaling an initiative up. Consider the possibility of starting the first Sprint with just enough work articulated in a Product Backlog to frame a Sprint Goal which empirically validates the proposition, and then evolving the rest of the backlog on a just-in-time basis.

Accept – from the very beginning – that architecture really ought to be emergent, and that frequent refactoring is not wasteful but a core development discipline. Above all, start thinking about each deliverable in terms of an experiment and a learning opportunity. That is, after all, the true nature of a Minimum Viable Product. An MVP isn’t something which necessarily represents an offering with a revenue stream.

It’s a tool for validating any assumptions you might make, and for minimizing stakeholders’ leap-of-faith about the opportunity they’ve been invited to buy into. Don’t therefore be afraid to plan substantial initialization work into the earliest Sprints. It could still represent the greatest part of the undertaking. The key thing to remember is that each increment must provide some functionality, no matter how trivial it may be.

A skilled Scrum Team will select that functionality so as to validate the foundations which are actually being laid. This could be a transactional user story or “tracer bullet” which demonstrates that essential architectural layers are in fact working. The toxicity of a “Sprint Zero” doesn’t lie in the fact that set-up work is being undertaken. Rather, it’s the lack of validation and empirical control. That’s the problem. Paradoxically, that’s also what makes the scrubbing of Sprint Zero so hard in many organizations.

The concern for empiricism just isn’t there, and agility degenerates into a game of mapping and illusion. Yet for those organizations which actually do put agile change to the forefront, the need to fake a Sprint soon fades away. X Login. Email address. Not Registered? If you don’t already have a Scrum. Register Here. Back to Blog Listing Prev Next. April 19, In September of that year Alistair Cockburn remarked : I have a sneaking feeling that someone was pressed about his use of Scrum when he did something that had no obvious business value at the start, and he invented “Oh, that was Sprint Zero!

Ken Schwaber offered the following observation in reply: Exactly A Requirements gathering, version control setup, and continuous integration setup. B Base system architecture and design.

Sprint zero in scrum. The Concept and Execution of Sprint Zero

X Login. Email address. Not Registered? If you don’t already have a Scrum. Register Here. Back to Blog Listing Prev Next. January 14, Sprint 0 A Sprint 0 is the name often given to a short effort to create a vision and a rough product backlog which allows creating an estimation of a product release. Hardening Sprint A Hardening Sprint is to me the most worrying interpretation of what a Sprint could be. View the discussion thread.

As a result, we employ spike scrums or spikes to solve the problem. A Spike is formed, and the team must conduct additional research or inquiry to complete the work. An estimate for the original user story is produced due to a spike, allowing the sprint to proceed as planned.

Spikes are added to the backlog in the same way as other stories; they are estimable and sized to fit within an iteration. A spike may result in a decision, a prototype, a storyboard, a proof of concept, or some other partial solution that will aid in the development of the ultimate product.

The output of a spike can be demonstrated to the rest of the team. This increases the visibility of the research and architectural efforts while also fostering a sense of communal ownership and shared responsibility for the important decisions made in the process of discovery. Spikes are accepted by the product owner in the same way that any other story is when the acceptance requirements for the spike are met.

Before the first sprint, Sprint Zero is introduced to conduct some research. Sprint zero is a sort of story for activities like research, exploration, design, and even prototyping. Typically, this sprint is used at the beginning of the project for activities like setting up the development environment, establishing the product backlog, etc. If you need to work on a technical or design issue between sprints, you can take spikes. A Sprint 0 is a short effort to develop a vision and a rough product backlog that allows for estimating a product release date.

It involves: 1. Estimate roughly 2. Form backlog 3. Setup environment 4. Define user stories. Sprints typically last one, two, or four weeks. A team will typically have developed a working product increment in this project by the end of the sprint. Make a sprint plan. Backlog stories should be included in your sprint.

Begin sprinting. Finish the sprint. Product backlog creation, infrastructure setup, architectural design, team resourcing, and test plan composition are all covered in Sprint 0. Prototype, design planning, and test validation are all part of prototyping.

Technical spikes are used to investigate various techniques in the solution domain. For example: Decide on whether to build or buy. Examine the impact of a new user story on performance or load. Your email address will not be published.

Post Comment. Enroll Today! What Is Sprint Zero in Agile? This cookie contains partner user IDs and last successful match time.

S 1 hour domain. This cookie is used by vimeo to collect tracking information. It sets a unique ID to embed videos to the website.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.

The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. IDE 1 year 24 days Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.

This is a geolocation cookie to understand where the users sharing the information are located. NID 6 months This cookie is used to a profile based on user’s interest and display personalized ads to the users. The cookie is used to serve relevant ads to the visitor as well as limit the time the visitor sees an and also measure the effectiveness of the campaign.

The main purpose of this cookie is advertising. This cookie is used to identify an user by an alphanumeric ID. It register the user data like IP, location, visited website, ads clicked etc with this it optimize the ads display based on user behaviour. This cookie is a session cookie version of the ‘rud’ cookie.

It contain the user ID information. It is used to deliver targeted advertising across the networks. This information is used to measure the efficiency of advertisement on websites.

The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user’s browser supports cookies. UserMatchHistory 1 month Linkedin – Used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor’s preferences.

The cookies stores information that helps in distinguishing between devices and browsers. This information us used to select advertisements served by the platform and assess the performance of the advertisement and attribute payment for those advertisements. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website. AddThis log the anonymous use to generate usage trends to improve the relevance of their services and advertising.

Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. This cookie is used by the online calculators on the website. Without the Calculated Fields cookie the instant quotation may not work. Welcome Username. Remember Me. Forgot Password. Not a Member? Confessions of a Sprint 0. About this Publication.

Across the sessions we wanted to cover the following topics: 1. Kick off, roadmap overview and communication of the product scope of the team. Team norms or working agreement generation. Definitions of ready formulation. Building of our definition of done. Ceremony calendar. Sprint planning for the first sprint, including story estimation, breakdown, and commitment After discussion we also decided to add business knowledge shares, conducted by Zoe.

Figure 1. Sprint 0 Session Calendar The final calendar of sessions, along with the purpose of each meeting, is presented in Figure 1. The team came up with some great suggestions for our working agreement, with my favorites being: 1. Everyone has an equal voice and equally valuable contribution. We will value each other as people beyond just our work.

Be transparent with any priorities, barriers, or time expectations. Avoid regular interrupted blocks to encourage developer flow The discussion that proved to be most challenging was the ceremony calendar sitting.

The key ones were: 1. Committed vs completed percentage 2. Velocity 3. Average velocity of the previous 3 sprints 4. Number of new defects raised 5.

For those looking to embark on their own Sprint 0, I would recommend covering the following topics: 1. Product roadmap and initial backlog. Delivery metrics and Key Performance Indicators that connect to business objectives. Stakeholder identification.

Team bonding. Working agreements. Definitions of ready and done. View Profile. Experience Report. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits.

However you may visit Cookie Settings to provide a controlled consent. Manage consent. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.

Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.

We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Please see our Privacy Notice for further information.

Necessary Necessary. Functional functional. Performance performance. Analytics analytics. Advertisement advertisement. Others others. The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis.

This cookie is essential for the security of the website and visitor. This cookie is set by Google. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category “Functional”.

The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category “Advertisement”. Used by sites written in JSP. This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is set by PaidMembership Pro plugin. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies.

This cookie is set by Addthis to make sure you see the updated count if you share a page and return to it before our share count cache is updated.

Used to remember the user’s Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus. This cookie is set by the provider Vimeo. This cookie is set by linkedIn. This cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website. This cookie is used to store the language preference of the user. This cookie is used to store the language preference of a user allowing the website to content relevant to the preferred language.

Set by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to enable website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos. This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The domain of this cookie is owned by Rocketfuel. The cookie is set by addthis. This domain of this cookie is owned by Vimeo. This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.

This cookie is a browser ID cookie set by Linked share Buttons and ad tags. These cookies are from Rocket Fuel rfihub. The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements.

Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This cookie is set by Addthis. This cookie is used to a profile based on user’s interest and display personalized ads to the users. The purpose of the cookie is to identify a visitor to serve relevant advertisement. The cookie is set by rlcdn. Registers data on visitors from multiple visits and on multiple websites.

This cookie is set by doubleclick. This cookie is used by AddThis as a unique user ID that recognises the user on returning visits.

Scrum Myths: It is ok to have a Sprint 0, Design Sprint, Hardening Sprint |

I’m going to take a slightly different stance than the others. You can’t look to Scrum for information on this – you’ll have to look elsewhere. Scrum simply does not address the parts of a project or effort that you describe. Scrum is focused on the creation or construction and delivery of products and services, particularly in an uncertain or changing environment. It doesn’t address what I’m used to calling the inception or initiation activities – determining and obtaining funding, forming one or more teams, identifying and exploring an initial vision and scope in Scrum terms, how you end up with a Product Backlog going into the first Sprint , architectural concerns tools, technologies, existing assets – things that are very hard to change later on , release planning and, for Scrum, Sprint cadence and how that aligns with release planning.

Since it’s not addressed in Scrum, the best conclusion that I’ve been able to draw are that this type of work must be done to some extent before the first Sprint of your Scrum process begins. The extent to which they must be done would vary depending on your organization and the product or service being created and delivered.

Once you understand what you must do, you can timebox this effort. The only data that I’ve found on this is a very small and probably not statistically significant survey by Scott Ambler where he found the average inception work lasted about weeks. Home Education Sprint Zero in Scrum.

Match case Limit results 1 per page. Post on May 4. Category: Education 3 download. Tags: sprint agenda bad scrum team member sure team team sure team aware outside team new scrum teams.

Sprint 0 is a good approach to start a project with Scrum in order to get the team and the prepared and trained to start with. The presentation has been hold at the monthly agile vietnam event in July Sprint Zero: Scrum starts here Hoa Luong, Scrum [email protected] IT bridge gmbhwww.

Scrum -. Scrum: the good, the bad and the ugly Scrum process sprint cycles roles powerpoint ppt slides. Scrum Practices Sprint Scrum process sprint cycles roles powerpoint presentation slides. Scrum Product Owner Certification – Agile. Tech Webinar – Agili per lo sprint: il framework Scrum. As long as we have enough work to get going, that’s fine because we’ll be refining it during development.

These steps and activities are not exhaustive. As always with Scrum, there is no silver bullet and you need to adapt to the circumstances as they exist. The purpose of a Sprint is to turn a selection of work into an Increment of value.

As described above, Sprint zero does not do this and it explains why Scrum does not recognize the term. I’m not sure where the term came from, or who coined it. But I do know that Ken is not a fan. Here’s an excerpt from a Yahoo Groups discussion in Sprint 0 has become a phrase misused to describe the planning that occurs prior to the first sprint. Sprint Zero is a term commonly used to describe pre-sprinting activities.

Pre-sprint activities are not prescribed, formalised or codified. The Scrum Guide says nothing about pre-Sprint activities and leaves it to Scrum Teams to decide what to do. The steps I have provided above are one way that you might approach pre-Sprint activities.

Ultimately though, what you do is down to you. Additionally, your teams experience of Scrum and the your organisation’s approach to agility may factor into your chosen approach.

Finally, it’s up to you to decide what to call pre-Sprint activities. Those who are involved in the game, whether they be managers or developers, are so used to a lack of of empirical control that its absence can hardly be missed when an agile initiative is attempted. When reminded of the manifesto principle that “working software is the primary measure of progress”, it may seem fair to them to dissemble, on the grounds that current circumstances are special and that other measures of progress are not ruled out.

The idea of what is meant by “value” can remain as distant from empiricism as it has always been, irrespective of any lip service paid to agility or any mappings conjured up for that purpose. Nowhere is this more evident than in the relationship between industry and the “Sprint Zero” antipattern.

The idea behind “Sprint Zero” is that, where initialization demands time and effort before any value can be delivered, it would be reasonable to account for this in terms of a Sprint of some kind. Remember that the Scrum Guide does not offer a prescription for essential set-up work.

A Sprint appears to be a whirling grindstone where there is no initial momentum to be overcome. The economy of the Scrum Framework can look like an exercise in cartoon physics to those who are new to it. They find themselves up against real-world constraints in a real-world situation, and look in vain for specific guidance or at least some sort of clue. How do we get things started in an enterprise environment?

To them a Sprint, however inappropriately, may appear to be the only means through which initialization can be accommodated at all. There has to be something like a Sprint Zero, they reckon. There’s nothing else going. This problem is an old one, and it was debated by two of the Agile Manifesto signatories back in In September of that year Alistair Cockburn remarked :. I have a sneaking feeling that someone was pressed about his use of Scrum when he did something that had no obvious business value at the start, and he invented “Oh, that was Sprint Zero!

Any work that must be done before a Sprint is not therefore a Sprint, and it ought to be minimized as far as possible. Indeed, Professional Scrum training currently remonstrates against any use of the term “Sprint Zero”.

For example the Scrum. C Overall planning, base system architecture, base design, version control and continuous integration setup. D Establish base system architecture and design, install version control and continuous integration setup.

Now, the bald claim that a zero-indexed Sprint cannot even exist may seem rather harsh. After all a Scrum Team may describe or number a Sprint in any way it cares to That’s the critical problem with “Sprint Zero” though.

A sham Sprint, where no releasable value is provided at all and only setup work is undertaken, is endemic along with that particular term which is used to describe it.