Recommended Order and Timing of Meetings in a Sprint

In a typical Scrum sprint, several key meetings structure the flow of work and ensure alignment within the team. These major meetings include refinement (formerly known as grooming), planning, daily standups, reviews (or demos), and retrospectives. While the Scrum Guide provides detailed formats for each, this post focuses on the optimal timing and sequence of these meetings and highlights some common misuses.

Refinement Meeting

Also known as grooming (a term retired due to its negative connotation in British English), the refinement meeting is crucial for preparing the backlog for the upcoming sprint. A well-executed refinement meeting can significantly streamline the subsequent planning meeting. This meeting should focus on ensuring backlog items are clear, prioritized, and small enough to fit within a sprint. Refinement typically has two parts: the ‘what’ and the ‘how.’

• The ‘What’ Portion: This part involves the development team working with the product owner to ensure that backlog items are clear and prioritized. It’s recommended to conduct this portion a few days before the sprint starts to allow time for resolving dependencies, clarifying requirements, and adjusting priorities.
• The ‘How’ Portion: This part focuses on sizing the backlog items, often involving technical discussions that do not necessarily require the product owner’s presence. From my observations, most of the effort in refinement (approximately 80%) is invested in the ‘how’ portion. Therefore, product owners can save significant time by attending only the ‘what’ part.

Scheduling refinement meetings too close to the sprint start increases the risk of unprepared backlog items, potentially jeopardizing the sprint.

Planning Meeting

The planning meeting should be concise, as the heavy lifting of backlog item preparation should already be done during refinement. The focus here is on pulling the right amount of work into the sprint based on the team’s average velocity. Holding this meeting a day before the sprint starts ensures the team begins the sprint with clear objectives and prepared backlog items. Planning can occur on the last day of the previous sprint without issue (more on that in the velocity-based planning section).

Review and Retrospective Meetings

The review meeting, or demo, typically precedes the retrospective. This order allows feedback from the review to inform the retrospective discussion. However, many teams find success even if the order is reversed, and some conduct these meetings after the sprint ends. While I consider the sequence and timing of these meetings as flexible, their existence is crucial for continuous improvement and alignment.

Avoiding a Gap Between Sprints

Some teams introduce a gap between the sprint end and the next sprint’s start to accommodate these meetings. This practice has notable downsides:

1. Backlog items completed during this gap aren’t recorded in any sprint, skewing data collection and affecting metrics like velocity and burndown/burnup charts.
2. Team members may feel less committed to work during this gap, as they are not operating within a defined sprint framework.

Sprint Timing

Many teams struggle with the question of which day to start and end the sprint. Given the global nature of most organizations today, setting the sprint start or end at the beginning or end of the week is not recommended:

• Start of the Week: In most countries, the start of the week is Monday, but in some countries, it is Sunday. Between these two, Monday is the better option since you shouldn’t start a sprint on the day off for some teams. However, starting the sprint on Monday means that the final fine-tuning must be done the day before, which varies for different teams in a global organization. For some teams, it will be Sunday, and for others, it will be Friday. This lack of synchronization can lead to misalignment between teams during the crucial final adjustments.
• End of the Week: In most countries, the end of the week is Friday, but in some countries, it is Thursday. Since the end of the sprint often involves the final closure of backlog items, it is essential for all teams to be present and aligned, especially in cases of cross-team integrations. Thus, Friday is not an ideal option.

This leaves us with Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday as viable options. My personal favorite is Wednesday.

Closing

In summary, the recommended order of meetings within a sprint starts with refinement (a few days before sprint start), followed by planning (a day before sprint start), and daily standups throughout the sprint. The review and retrospective meetings should ideally follow the sprint’s conclusion, with the review preceding the retrospective to incorporate any feedback. Maintaining this structure helps ensure the sprint runs smoothly and the team remains aligned and focused on continuous improvement.