The 5 Scrum events explained

What are the 5 Scrum events?

Scrum events facilitate change within the Scrum framework. They are designed to increase efficiency in planning, effectively reducing analysis paralysis. For this reason, the Scrum events are time-boxed. They promote frequent checks, which provide transparency, elucidate potential issues early and increase velocity by removing impediments.

Events were sometimes known as ceremonies in early Agile publications; however, the 2011 Scrum Guide officially defined them as events. This designation persists through the most recent Scrum Guide, the 2020 edition. The term events reduces formality and aligns with the iterative nature of Scrum.

The five events are the sprint, sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review and sprint retrospective. This article provides an in-depth look at each event, including the duration, purpose and participants.

1. The sprint

A key concept of the events is that each is time-boxed, and the sprint itself is no exception. The sprint is typically two weeks in duration, and although some teams engage in one-week or three-week sprints, they should be no longer than one month to facilitate iterative development.

Scrum events facilitate change within the Scrum framework. They are designed to increase efficiency in planning, effectively reducing analysis paralysis.

The purpose of the sprint is to execute on the work that has been accepted into the sprint through the sprint commitment. This may include one or several increments. It should always include the development team, testers and product owner. The goal of the sprint is to complete and close all the committed user stories.

Once a sprint is started, its scope should not change. However, if the product owner determines that changes are critical enough to warrant inclusion, the team should stop the sprint and then plan and commit to a new sprint.

Sprint participants include the Scrum master, developers, quality engineers and product owners. The four following events are contained within the sprint.

2. Sprint planning

The sprint planning meeting is the event at which the next sprint is planned. The attendees include the Scrum master, developers -- testers included -- and product owner. Other stakeholders, such as UX professionals or technical architects, might be invited to discuss specific user stories.

The sprint planning event should be scheduled for at least two to three hours, depending on if the backlog items have been refined and the length of the upcoming sprint.

The sprint planning meeting addresses three topics: the value of the sprint, what work can be completed during the sprint and how that work will be done. The product owner selects epics and user stories from the backlog that address the value of the sprint. Through collaboration and additional refinement, the Scrum team comes to a shared understanding of what can be accomplished in the upcoming sprint. Finally, the developers break down and estimate each item into actionable increments of work needed. The sprint goal and the work increments become the sprint backlog and are moved to the Kanban board for tracking purposes.

3. Daily scrum

The daily scrum is where the team tracks the day-to-day progress of the sprint and removes impediments to progress. This meeting is primarily for developers. It is held at the same time every day, time-boxed to 15 minutes. This prevents discussions from getting into solutioning.

During the daily scrum, the developers discuss their progress as they work toward achieving the sprint goal. Discussion is often sparked by answering three commonly asked questions:

• What did you do yesterday?
• What are you planning to accomplish today?
• Do you have any impediments?

This daily meeting holds developers accountable for their progress and elucidates issues so that they can be resolved quickly. The team uses this meeting to inspect and adapt, two of the pillars of Scrum.

4. Sprint review

The sprint review is the penultimate event in the sprint. It is the event at which the team showcases the work of the sprint. This meeting includes the Scrum master, product owner and the developers, as well as key stakeholders. The sprint review takes up one to two hours, depending on the amount of work to be demonstrated.

The purpose of the sprint review meeting is twofold: it inspects the work increments and ensures that they meet the definition of done, and it also provides early feedback on both the work and potential changes to the project based on changes in the business direction or the competitive climate. This feedback might inform changes to the product backlog and changes in direction for the next sprint.

5. Sprint retrospective

The sprint retrospective occurs at the end of the sprint. The purpose of this event is to assess the process and gather feedback. The entire development team, as well as the product owner and the Scrum master, attends this meeting. It usually takes an hour or two; however, it can be extended if additional discussions are needed.

During this meeting, the team reviews what worked well and what did not work well, and most importantly, they discuss ideas for process improvement. Since the goal of the sprint retrospective is continuous improvement, team members offer feedback that aims to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Scrum events at a glance

This is a guide to the Scrum events in a chart for quick reference. The sprint is listed among the events, but it's important to remember that the other four events are contained in the sprint. This chart gives teams a quick idea of the participants, time frame and purpose of each event.

Gerie Owen is a lead quality engineer at ZS. She is a conference presenter and author on technology and testing topics, and a certified Scrum master.