A Sprint is the fixed-length execution cycle used in Scrum. During a Sprint, the Scrum Team works toward a Sprint Goal and creates a usable Increment of the product.
The Sprint establishes a predictable planning and feedback rhythm. Rather than waiting until the end of a long development phase to evaluate results, the team repeatedly plans, executes, reviews what was produced and adjusts future work.
How long is a Sprint?
The Scrum Guide defines Sprints as fixed-length events of one month or less. A new Sprint begins immediately after the previous Sprint concludes.
Teams commonly use one-, two-, three- or four-week cadences.
What happens during a Sprint?
The Sprint contains Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, the Sprint Review and the Sprint Retrospective.
At Sprint Planning, the team determines why the Sprint is valuable, what can be completed and how selected work will be accomplished. Daily Scrums inspect progress. The Sprint Review evaluates the outcome and the retrospective focuses on improving effectiveness.
The Sprint Goal matters
A Sprint is not simply a calendar bucket filled with unrelated tasks. The Sprint Goal provides a coherent objective and gives the team flexibility in determining how to accomplish the work.
Sprints and the Integrated Master Schedule
Adding every Sprint activity to an IMS can create unnecessary schedule detail.
A program planner should identify information that must be visible outside the Agile team. A series of Sprints may support a software release, integration event or capability demonstration. Those larger outcomes are often more appropriate at IMS level than individual user stories.
Sprint cadence and dependencies
Dependencies become especially important when Agile teams interact with hardware, cybersecurity, test facilities or external organizations.
If an external interface must be available before a critical feature can be completed, that dependency should be visible at the program level.
This aligns with good IMS development: important driving relationships should be visible and logically connected.
Continue with Product Backlog vs Sprint Backlog.