A team's two-week Sprint has its last working day on Friday, and the next Sprint's Sprint Planning is booked for Monday morning. The team holds the Sprint Review on Friday morning and books the Sprint Retrospective for the following Tuesday, "once everyone is back from the release". Which statement is correct?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 2. Developing people and teams easy
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The options
Correct The Sprint Retrospective concludes the Sprint, so the Tuesday slot puts it inside the next Sprint
Correct. The Review is the second to last event and the Retrospective is the last one, so it belongs on Friday, before the next Sprint begins. A Retrospective held after Monday's Sprint Planning is no longer closing the Sprint it inspects, and its improvements arrive after the next Sprint has already been planned.
Not correct The order is fine as long as both events happen within a fortnight of the Sprint ending
Wrong. Scrum defines no grace period after a Sprint. A new Sprint starts immediately after the previous one concludes, so anything scheduled afterwards is happening in the next Sprint.
Not correct The Retrospective may be held at any point in the Sprint provided it happens every Sprint
Wrong, and it is the tempting answer because frequency does matter. But its position matters too: it inspects the Sprint that just happened, which is only possible once that Sprint's work and Review are behind it.
Not correct The Retrospective should come before the Sprint Review so improvements can be shown to stakeholders
Wrong. That inverts the two events and asks the team to reflect on a Sprint whose Increment has not yet been inspected with stakeholders. Improvements are for the team's own working, not for the stakeholder audience.
Why
The Sprint's shape is fixed at both ends: Sprint Planning initiates it and the Sprint Retrospective concludes it, with the Sprint Review second to last. Because a new Sprint starts the moment the previous one concludes, a Retrospective pushed to the following week is not a late Retrospective — it is a Retrospective held in the next Sprint, paid for out of that Sprint's capacity, and looking back at work that is now two weeks old.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section Sprint Retrospective
- What it says
- The Sprint Retrospective concludes the Sprint.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 2 and space the ones you get wrong.
Practise Professional Scrum Master I
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