Agile, specifically Scrum, continues to gain recognition as an effective way to drive forward product quality in an efficient manner. Organizations large and small continue to explore ways to implement Agile. Today, we examine this Sprint to detail how it fits into the Agile puzzle to improve the effectiveness of implementation and execution.

The goal of the Sprint is for the Development Team to come together to develop a minimal number of User Stories, project skeleton, story mapping, and develop a workable product. This Sprint should be kept lightweight and relatively high level. It is all about the origination of project exploration and gaining an understanding of where you want to head while keeping velocity low. Goals of Sprint Zero. The purpose of this Sprint, like any other Sprint, is to be as productive as possible. It is not about intense software development, though.

The Sprint should be a lightweight exercise. By the end of this Sprint, the hope is you have done a prioritization exercise of features or a list of User Stories. You may have a minimal environment set up to write your code, as well as a plan to develop the rest of the product once it is complete.

From a high-level, Sprint zero has the task of trying to get ready for the subsequent Sprints to begin. A team is much more effective when they have: a defined release plan in mind, knows where the code is going to live, and how to implement that code. The goal of this Sprint is to focus on completing the same activities as any other Sprint.

You want to work towards Agile Events, updating the backlog , taking part in the daily stand-ups, doing a retrospective, and delivering an end-product, whatever that may be in this type of set-up. The expectation, in the end, is still to get to a minimum viable product or MVP.

Sprint zero can also work to the benefit of the Development Team to get them familiar with Scrum. Think of it as an opportunity for the team to get a Scrum crash course, to understand the various Agile events and where they each fit. The team can also get a rhythm, go through their forming, storming, norming, and performing phases early-on.

The time can also get used to distribute the product mission and vision statement. The effect on the remaining Sprints, once the team gets going, becomes evident after this initial Sprint. The effect is that the team has a better understanding of how the Sprints will execute. You have the framework and process in place. You get a feel for how you will interact during the various Agile Events and how to improve upon them going forward.

Sprint zero should establish a solid foundation for the Scrum team to succeed. By the end of Sprint zero, the team will have a much better understanding of the future Sprints. They will be more able to execute, drive forward value, and quality. The Concept and Execution of Sprint Zero. Business Agility Frameworks. Dec 12 Written By Zach Chapman. Goals of Sprint Zero The purpose of this Sprint, like any other Sprint, is to be as productive as possible.

Impact on the Remaining Sprints The effect on the remaining Sprints, once the team gets going, becomes evident after this initial Sprint. Learn About sprint zero in our certified scrum master classes. Looking for more information or help? Zach Chapman.

The Concept and Execution of Sprint Zero — Clearly Agile

 
What are Sprint 0 and Design Sprints? · Sprint 0. The initial effort of a team to create the guiding documents required for scrum projects: a vision, a product. The main benefit of a Sprint Zero is that it allows a team to get an idea of the work ahead of them. They can then self-organize in order to. Sprint Zero is typically held before the official commencement and at the beginning of the team’s existence. The purpose of the Sprint is for.

Sprint Zero | Sprint 0 | Sprint Zero in AgileSprint Zero | Sprint 0 | Sprint Zero in Agile.What is Sprint Zero? Sprint Zero Explained – BMC Software | Blogs

The expectation, in the end, is still to get to a minimum viable product or MVP. Sprint zero can also work to the benefit of the Development Team to get them familiar with Scrum. Think of it as an opportunity for the team to get a Scrum crash course, to understand the various Agile events and where they each fit. The team can also get a rhythm, go through their forming, storming, norming, and performing phases early-on. The time can also get used to distribute the product mission and vision statement.

The effect on the remaining Sprints, once the team gets going, becomes evident after this initial Sprint. The effect is that the team has a better understanding of how the Sprints will execute. You have the framework and process in place.

You get a feel for how you will interact during the various Agile Events and how to improve upon them going forward. Sprint zero should establish a solid foundation for the Scrum team to succeed. By the end of Sprint zero, the team will have a much better understanding of the future Sprints. They will be more able to execute, drive forward value, and quality.

The Concept and Execution of Sprint Zero. Business Agility Frameworks. Dec 12 Written By Zach Chapman. Goals of Sprint Zero The purpose of this Sprint, like any other Sprint, is to be as productive as possible.

Impact on the Remaining Sprints The effect on the remaining Sprints, once the team gets going, becomes evident after this initial Sprint. Learn About sprint zero in our certified scrum master classes. If you do not have a team, you don’t have a sprint. What’s more, in many cases the new scrum team may simply be assembled from within the organization, in which case there is not much work being done to justify a sprint. I have not heard this view very many times, but some people have said this to me during conversations.

Again, chairs, desks, workstations, SharePoint sites, etc. These activities can happen any time or could be happening continuously in the background. A just-in-time approach will work just fine. For example, we can source monitors, software installs, etc. The organization is finding it difficult to give up control and empower the team.

Introducing a long Sprint Zero at the start and a long validation at the end helps keep the love for waterfall alive. In addition, it hinders the effectiveness of scrum. If waterfall works for you, then by all means, you should use waterfall. This article focuses on teams that follow the scrum rituals but keep the waterfall soul. None of the above Sprint Zero items produce any value for the customer. They cannot be demoed. To be effective at scrum, we need to change our design thinking.

In addition, there is no reason to be setting up logistics in Sprint Zero. In most organizations, there are separate groups that handle these things, and so the setup tasks can be assigned to someone to be done in parallel. Setting up logistics is not a story, it’s a support task. A just-in-time completion of a support task works fine, even as advance completion may be welcome. Considering planning, product backlog setup, and design in Sprint Zero is a proxy for “big design up front” BDF.

In agile we try to stay away from that. Often, an associated symptom will be a very hierarchical organization, thus preventing the scrum team from being really empowered.

Personnel who are most active in Sprint Zero may be different from those most active in other sprints. The Sprint Zero leaders will “guide” the team through sprints but may not feel bound by the time and other constraints that the rest of the team has.

This creates a two-level organization instead of the flat one that scrum promotes. A two-level organization tends to follow a task-assignment and status-reporting culture, instead of a mind-set of ownership and delivering value. Before we define Sprint Zero, let me say that the long system test phase before the release can actually be an automated regression test.

Each sprint can create automated tests for the features it implements and add that to the regression.