Scrum events are meetings or organizational activities undertaken by the Scrum Team. Their common characteristic is that they serve the purpose of nurturing transparency: they are opportunities to talk about planning, methods and reflect on Scrum Team achievements. However, each Scrum Event has distinct features, a defined purpose and duration.

Scrum events – table of contents:

  1. Scrum events – Introduction
  2. Sprint
  3. Sprint Planning
  4. Daily Scrum
  5. Sprint Review
  6. Sprint Retrospective
  7. Scrum events – Summary

Scrum events – Introduction

Scrum events, unofficially called “Scrum ceremonies” are:

  • Sprint
  • Sprint Planning
  • Daily Scrum
  • Sprint Review
  • Sprint Retrospective

Each of these has a very specific role in Scrum. That’s why we will devote a separate article for each one in Scrum Guide series. But today, we’ll cover their short definitions and provide basic characteristics of each Scrum event.

Sprint

Sprints determine the work cycle of the Scrum Team, therefore each Sprint has the same length. They follow one another consecutively and last from the first day of work on a Product to the last.

The Scrum Team establishes the duration of one Sprint. It depends on the needs and capabilities of the team and the organization, as well as on the nature of the Product that the Scrum Team is working on. The optimal Sprint duration should follow the principles of empiricism, according to which it should be:

  • long enough – so that the Development Team has time to significantly improve the Product
  • short enough – to reduce risk, unnecessary complexity increase and Goal dilution

Best practices suggest that one Sprint should last from one to four weeks. Shorter Sprints help you diagnose issues and constraints faster and estimate the amount of work to do in a given Sprint. Longer Sprints allow you to evaluate the results of the Team’s performance by presenting larger deliverables during a Sprint Review.

During each Sprint all the smaller Scrum events take place. They include:

Scrum events

Sprint Planning

Sprint Planning, as the name suggests, is the Scrum Team meeting that concerns scheduling the next Sprint. Therefore it is held on the first day of a new Sprint. The entire Scrum Team participates in Sprint Planning, and the event lasts a maximum of eight hours.

In a nutshell, it involves answering three questions:

  • What will be the Goal of the Sprint?
  • What to do?
  • How to do it?

Daily Scrum

Daily Scrum is a short event in which the Developers participate. This daily meeting lasts no more than 15 minutes.To keep it simple, the Daily Scrum is always held at the same place and time.

The main focus of the Daily Scrum is planning, not summarizing completed tasks. Therefore, the conversation about the current progress of the Product should focus strictly on Sprint Goal. The Development Team decides collectively on the upcoming scope of activities that each Developer should complete by the next Daily Scrum.

Sprint Review

Sprint Review, along with Sprint Retrospective, is a recap event and takes place on the last day of the ending Sprint.

The purpose of the Sprint Review is to summarize the Sprint in terms of completed tasks that aim at completing the Product Goal. Usually, it also includes a presentation of the current state of the Product and a discussion of its newly completed features. Each Sprint Review should end with an update of the Product Backlog.

A Sprint Review is an open event: the entire Scrum Team as well as free-will Stakeholders, attend it. The event is usually moderated by a Scrum Master.

Sprint Retrospective

The Sprint Retrospective, also a Sprint summary event, is different from the Sprint Review. It focuses on how the Scrum Team is working, rather than on the product they are developing. To create a safe space for communication, Sprint Retrospective is an event involving only the Scrum Team members and Scrum Master chairs the session.

The Sprint Retrospective lasts a maximum of three hours and is the last event of the ending Sprint. Its objectives are:

  • learn from the current collaboration methods
  • identify areas for improvement
  • suggest and discuss how to make improvements
scrum events

Scrum events – Summary

Scum events include:

  • Sprint Planning – planning a new Sprint on its first day
  • Daily Scrum – the daily organizational meeting of the Development Team
  • Sprint Review – open meeting to summarize the Sprint and present new features of the Product
  • Sprint Retrospective – internal Scrum Team meeting to summarize the collaboration during the completed Sprint

All events aim at Scrum Team’s work, its results, planning, and feedback. You can read more about each of them in separate articles.

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Scrum Guide | 27. Scrum events caroline becker avatar 1background

Author: Caroline Becker

As a Project Manager, Caroline is an expert in finding new methods to design the best workflows and optimize processes. Her organizational skills and ability to work under time pressure make her the best person to turn complicated projects into reality.

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Scrum Guide:

  1. Glossary of basic terms, roles and notions
  2. What is Scrum?
  3. Scrum values
  4. How to implement Scrum in your company?
  5. Scrum Team - what is it and how does it work?
  6. Who is a Product Owner?
  7. The most common mistakes of Product Owner
  8. Who is the Scrum Master?
  9. Characteristics of a good Scrum Master
  10. The most common mistakes of Scrum Master
  11. What statistics and metrics should the Scrum Master track?
  12. Cooperation between Product Owner and Scrum Master
  13. Development Team in Scrum
  14. The most common mistakes of Developers
  15. Scrum artifacts
  16. Scaling Scrum
  17. Sprint Backlog
  18. What is the Product Backlog?
  19. What are User Stories?
  20. Creating the best User Story with INVEST
  21. The most common User Story mistakes
  22. User Story Acceptance Criteria
  23. Estimation and Story Points in Scrum
  24. Planning Poker
  25. Team Estimation Game
  26. Defining Increment
  27. Scrum events
  28. What is Sprint in Scrum?
  29. Scrum Team Commitments - Product Goal, Sprint Goal and Definition of Completion
  30. What is a Burndown Chart?
  31. How to create and interpret a burndown chart?
  32. Advantages and disadvantages of the burndown chart
  33. Kanban boards in Scrum and Scrumban
  34. Velocity in Scrum - Speed of the Development Team
  35. Daily Scrum
  36. Sprint Planning
  37. Sprint Review
  38. What is a Sprint Retrospective?
  39. Common mistakes during a Sprint Retrospective
  40. Product Backlog nurturing