ENGAGEMENT

Sprint

A fixed-length unit of work (usually 1 to 2 weeks) at the end of which a shippable increment is delivered and reviewed.

Last reviewed: 2026-05-24 byKevin Riedl wiki β†—

Sprint is a Scrum-specific term that has leaked into general usage to mean any short, time-boxed unit of work. The original definition requires three things: a fixed length, a planning session at the start, and a review at the end. Most teams keep the first two and drop the third, which is why a lot of teams call their cadence "sprints" but produce no demonstrable increment.

The duration matters. One-week sprints force tight scope and surface delivery problems fast. Two-week sprints give more room for substantial work but absorb more drift. Three-week sprints almost always become two badly-planned ones.

// FAQ

FAQs

FAQs

One-week sprints surface delivery problems faster and force tighter scope. Two-week sprints give room for substantial work but absorb more drift. We default to two weeks for most teams, one week when delivery discipline is wobbly.
They drop the review or the retro. A sprint without a demo is just a deadline. A sprint without a retro is a treadmill. If the team cannot show a working increment at the end, the cadence is theatre.
Sort of. The cadence helps; the ‘shippable increment’ part rarely does. For research-heavy work, the better unit is a time-boxed exploration with a written summary at the end, not a polished demo.