Scrum Ceremonies

Let’s have a look on scrum ceremonies, and understand how they empower the team and drive agile development.

Sprint planning

Attendees: Development team, Scrum Master, Product Owner

When: At the beginning of a sprint.

Duration: 4 hours (2 weeks sprint) / 8 hours (4 weeks sprint)

Agile Framework: Scrum. (Kanban teams also plan, of course, but they are not on a fixed iteration schedule with formal sprint planning) 

Purpose: Sprint planning sets up the entire team for success throughout the sprint. Coming into the meeting, the product owner will have a prioritized product backlog. They discuss each item with the development team, and the group collectively estimates the effort involved. The development team will then make a sprint forecast outlining how much work the team can complete from the product backlog. That body of work then becomes the sprint backlog.

Daily stand-up

Attendees: Development team, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Stakeholders (optional)

When: Once per day, typically in the morning.

Duration: No more than 15 minutes. Standing up helps keep the meeting short!

Agile Framework: Scrum and Kanban. 

Purpose: Stand-up is designed to quickly inform everyone of what's going on across the team. It's not a detailed status meeting. The tone should be light and fun, but informative. Have each team member answer the following questions:

• What did I complete yesterday?
• What will I work on today?
• Am I blocked by anything?

There's an implicit accountability in reporting what work you completed yesterday in front of your peers. No one wants to be the team member who is constantly doing the same thing and not making progress.

Sprint Review

Attendees: Development team, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Stakeholders

When: At the end of a sprint or milestone.

Duration: 30-60 minutes. 

Agile Framework: Scrum and Kanban. 

Purpose: Iteration review is a time to showcase the work of the team. They can be in a casual format like "demo Fridays", or in a more formal meeting structure. This is the time for the team to celebrate their accomplishments, demonstrate work finished within the iteration, and get immediate feedback from project stakeholders. Remember, work should be fully demonstrable and meet the team's quality bar to be considered complete and ready to showcase in the review. 

Retrospective

Attendees: Development team, Scrum Master, Product Owner

When: At the end of a sprint.

Duration: 60 minutes. 

Agile Framework: Scrum and Kanban. 

Purpose: Agile is about getting rapid feedback to make the product and development culture better. Retrospectives help the team understand what worked well–and what didn't.

Retrospectives aren't just a time for complaints without action. Use retrospectives to find out what's working so the team can continue to focus on those areas. Also, find out what's not working and use the time to find creative solutions and develop an action plan. Continuous improvement is what sustains and drives development within an agile team, and retrospectives are a key part of that. 

Whereas the Sprint Review is about the product, the Sprint Retrospective is about the process – the way in which the Scrum team works. It is never omitted.