More and more businesses are adopting an agile approach to achieving their goals, from operations to IT to marketing. The project management sprint system allows businesses to segment and streamline their workflows while optimizing their workforce for agile and Scrum projects. Learn more about what sprints are and how they benefit project management teams in this definition.
What Is a Sprint in Agile Project Management?
A sprint is a short iteration of development work that happens in the agile development and project management framework. Agile project management is an iterative approach to building and managing software development projects.
Agile practitioners divide their work into focused sprints, which helps them to create continuous releases and to use each new sprint as an opportunity to implement customer feedback received during the previous sprint.
Key Terms to Know for Sprint Planning
Scrum
Scrum is one of the most popular agile frameworks that helps teams work together and encourages them to focus on short-term goals that roll up to larger objectives.
Sprint
A sprint, as the name implies, is an aggressive and short-term push to complete a segment of a bigger project or set of tasks. For example, a tech team that is working on multiple tech fixes and projects might divide their work tasks into six-week increments. Sprints are key measurements of time and effort in Scrum and agile methodologies.
Agile
Agile is a project management and development workflow that focuses on iterative and flexible progress toward bigger goals that may or may not be predefined. Agile projects often operate in sprints. These smaller increments of work make faster delivery and feedback possible.
Sprint velocity
The project management sprint velocity is a predetermined speed at which sprint tasks will be tackled. A key metric in agile projects is a comparison of the projected sprint velocity and actual sprint velocity as measured at the end of the sprint.
Burndown chart
This tool is used by agile teams to display completed projects and work left to do in the sprint.
What Roles Are Involved in Agile Sprints?
- Scrum master: The leader and facilitator who ensures the project management sprint follows its schedule and proposed objectives as it should.
- Product owner: This person defines tasks and determines which ones should get priority in the agile workflow.
- Development team members: Group members that work together to create software and other development-focused projects based on sprint and project plans.
Benefits of Sprint Planning
More focused approach to productivity
Sprints help all team members know what they should be working on. Through communication and streamlined workflows, agile team members should clearly understand how they’re supposed to spend their time on a given project.
Improved morale
Sprints help teams to stay organized and to tackle their assigned tasks with clarity and confidence. Project teams that are empowered by sprint planning typically meet more deadlines and feel greater job satisfaction because they’re receiving transparent communication and feedback throughout the project process.
Better quality and higher customer satisfaction
The brevity of sprints gives teams time to evaluate sprint performance and decide what needs to change in upcoming sprints. This continuous measurement of results improves project processes and the final product too. Customers also appreciate the sprint model, because it gives them the opportunity to review project segments and offer feedback on a regular basis.
Adaptability
As the name agile applies, businesses that use sprints can more easily pivot their efforts on a quick timeline. If project goals, budgets, or stakeholders suddenly change, the sprint model helps teams to adjust accordingly without negatively impacting the overall project.
How to Improve Your Next Sprint
- Be relentless in your efforts to measure: Measurement is the key to ensuring that project management sprints produce the desired results. It’s also important to select metrics that matter to your project team and external project stakeholders.
- Allow room for failure: Giving your team room to try new things may lead to failure, but it also may lead to an innovative solution that improves future sprints and project goals. Be okay with not getting a few things right along the way, and make sure your measurement system is in place so mistakes are caught early.
- Use technology to support your goals: The right technology stack can optimize project management sprints and team collaboration. It’s important to find a solution that fits your exact product development needs.
- Empower and train your team: Take the time to train your team, because no sprint plan can be successful if team members aren’t fully on board. Keep communication flowing to ensure all team members have a clear knowledge of their roles and are empowered to carry them out.
Learn more about sprint project management and the Best Project Management Software here.
