Which TWO of these statements about Sprint length are true in Scrum?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 1. Understanding and applying the Scrum framework medium
Machine-checked — no person has signed for it. This question was read against the source cited below by an automated pass, which found no contradiction. That is a weaker claim than it sounds: the same kind of process wrote the question, so it can confirm its own mistake.
Treat it as a good draft rather than as settled fact, and read the source below before you rely on it. It is not used in mock exams here — only questions a person has signed for are.
The options
Choose 2.
Correct Sprints are fixed-length events of one month or less
Correct. Fixed length is what creates consistency, and the one-month ceiling is what guarantees inspection and adaptation of progress toward the Product Goal at least every calendar month.
Correct Shorter Sprints can be used to generate more learning cycles and to limit the risk of cost and effort to a smaller time frame
Correct. This is the usual reason to shorten a Sprint: it is a risk decision, since each Sprint may be considered a short project and a shorter one puts less at stake before the next inspection.
Not correct A Sprint may be extended by a few days when the Developers are close to finishing the selected items
Wrong. Extending the Sprint trades away the predictability the fixed length exists to create, and it does it to protect a forecast rather than a Sprint Goal. Unfinished items return to the Product Backlog and the Sprint ends on time.
Not correct Every Scrum Team in an organisation must use the same Sprint length
Wrong. Scrum sets no such rule. Teams working on one product often align their Sprints for practical reasons, but that is a sensible arrangement rather than a requirement of the framework.
Not correct The Sprint length should be chosen so that everything the Developers select can always be finished within it
Wrong, and it inverts the relationship. The Sprint is a fixed timebox that a forecast is fitted into; it is not a variable duration sized to fit a forecast.
Why
The Sprint is the only Scrum event with a fixed length rather than a maximum, and that is the whole point of it: a heartbeat you can plan against. When a Sprint's horizon is too long the Sprint Goal may go stale, complexity rises and risk grows, which is the argument for shortening. Nothing in the framework is an argument for lengthening one that has already started.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section The Sprint
- What it says
- Shorter Sprints can be employed to generate more learning cycles and limit risk of cost and effort to a smaller time frame.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 1 and space the ones you get wrong.
Practise Professional Scrum Master I
More questions on this objective
- A department is choosing an approach for a product where both the requirements and the technology are poorly understood and keep changing as the team learns. Someone argues for Scrum "because it is founded on empiricism". What does founding an approach on empiricism actually commit the team to? machine-checked
- At the end of a Sprint three items are functionally complete but have not been through the automated test suite the Definition of Done requires. To avoid an awkward conversation the Developers mark them Done on the board and include them in the Sprint Review. Which pillar has been damaged, and what follows from that? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team holds every event on schedule, keeps a burn-down chart and reviews its metrics carefully. For six Sprints running, the same impediment — a two-day wait for a shared test environment — has been named in the Retrospective, and nothing about it has changed. What is the accurate diagnosis? machine-checked
- Mid-Sprint, the Developers discover that a third-party API rate-limits far below what they assumed, which makes the current plan unworkable. One of them suggests carrying on as planned and raising it at the Sprint Retrospective, so the Sprint is not disrupted. What should happen instead? machine-checked
- Which THREE of these statements about Scrum theory are accurate as the framework defines it? machine-checked
- A Developer is fairly sure the design the team agreed last week will not scale. The team is halfway through the Sprint, everyone else seems content, and saying so means an uncomfortable conversation and probably rework. Which Scrum value most directly asks them to speak? machine-checked
All questions on Understanding and applying the Scrum framework