A Scrum Team runs two-week Sprints and books three hours for the Sprint Retrospective, usually finishing in forty-five minutes. A new team member argues the event must run the full three hours "because that is what Scrum says". What is the accurate position?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 1. Understanding and applying the Scrum framework easy
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The options
Correct Three hours is a maximum for a one-month Sprint, and for shorter Sprints the event is usually shorter
Correct. Timeboxes in Scrum bound an event, they do not schedule it. Forty-five useful minutes that end with an improvement the team will actually make is a good Retrospective.
Not correct Correct as stated — three hours is the defined length of the Sprint Retrospective
Wrong. Every Scrum timebox is an upper bound, and the published figures assume a one-month Sprint. Filling a timebox for its own sake is how a team learns to resent its own improvement event.
Not correct Retrospectives have no timebox, because improvement conversations should not be cut short
Wrong. The Sprint Retrospective is timeboxed like every other Scrum event, and keeping events within their timebox is one of the ways a Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team.
Not correct For a two-week Sprint Scrum sets the maximum at ninety minutes
Wrong. Scrum publishes maxima for a one-month Sprint and says that shorter Sprints usually have shorter events; it does not define a scaled figure for a two-week Sprint, however sensible halving it may be in practice.
Why
The Sprint Retrospective concludes the Sprint — it is the last event, with the Sprint Review second to last — and it is timeboxed to a maximum of three hours for a one-month Sprint. Remember the whole set as maxima at one month: eight hours to plan, four to review, three to retrospect, with fifteen minutes daily that does not scale because it is not a per-Sprint event.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section Sprint Retrospective
- What it says
- The Sprint Retrospective concludes the Sprint. It is timeboxed to a maximum of three hours for a one-month Sprint.
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