Extending Your Sprint

I had to do something unorthodox this Sprint. Because I knew I would be traveling during the normal time for my Review, I made the Sprint five weeks instead of four. A week was reserved for visiting friends and touring new cities - worthy Backlog items - but knew that there would be no time to sit down for a Sprint Review, Retrospective and Planning session. This is one of the reasons I advocate that you use four-week sprints instead of the traditional two-week period. It’s just too tempting to skip a week of ceremonies and then get off track. Because I’ve been doing this for a while, there is virtually no risk of me not picking up where I left off. Even this blog was written in advance of my travels and scheduled for release on its normal Wednesday time.

Organizations don’t do this. They stick their schedule and the rhythm of every two weeks. If someone is out on vacation, the team simply goes on without them. That is much more difficult when the team is YOU. Of course, if you’ve established a team beyond yourself, then they should continue with the Sprint Ceremonies on the regular cadence. You don’t have to be there. Remember that one of the principles of Scrum is that the teams are self-organizing. Even the Scrum Master doesn’t need to be at the ceremonies.

So go ahead and add a week to your Sprint if you need to, or if it’s better, shorten it a week to accommodate the other events of your life.