Scrum Development Blog » timebox http://blog.3back.com Better teams make better products. Fri, 21 May 2010 14:04:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Time Boxing http://blog.3back.com/scrum-industry-terms/time-boxing http://blog.3back.com/scrum-industry-terms/time-boxing#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:01:09 +0000 The 3Back Team http://blog.3back.com/?p=382 A time box is a common practice underlying most agile processes especially, Scrum. Time boxing is a the closest thing in agile or scrum has to something that is a best practice. Most managers or early adopters of Scrum wonder what they do to create a sense of urgency and the answer is simple “Time Box”.

In Scrum we have 6 formal time boxed events.

  1. Releasing Planningscrum time boxing
  2. Sprint Planning
  3. Sprint
  4. Sprint Reveiw
  5. Sprint Retrospectvie
  6. Daily Scrum

Other time boxes can be applied and should be. The purpose of the time box is to cause movement and to set an expectation that we will limit the time and energy spent in any one direction. Generally people will fall prey to taking on too much work or big amorphous work that has no discernibly edges or clarity. Our understanding is similarly fuzzy and vague.

We can use a time box for many things including as a guide line in how we break work down into tasks or execution. Sometimes people use time boxing as a way to avoid gold platting or excessive polishing of an item or thing.

Time box is a critical practice in agile / scrum and should be applied with care. Arbitrary time boxing can drive motivation down and should not be used as a tool to create a frenetic pace or fearful environment. Time boxing is an important tool for any good scrum master or facilitator.

]]> http://blog.3back.com/scrum-industry-terms/time-boxing/feed 0 When should a sprint end? http://blog.3back.com/scrum-questions/when-should-a-sprint-end http://blog.3back.com/scrum-questions/when-should-a-sprint-end#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:40:15 +0000 The 3Back Team http://blog.3back.com/?p=69
  • We have consumed all the work we said we would in our sprint planning
  • All of the work has been completed.
  • Both the team and the product owner agree it should end.
  • The amount of time specified for the sprint has run out

    • Comment: Set a time-box and stick to it. Failing to adhere to the time boxes for your sprint is a badusing time boxes is best practice habit. Without time-boxes we rapidly loose our sense of predictability and the amount of complexity we tackle in each bite drifts upward. Teams become fragmented and loose cohesion. This is a strong rule but, by no means an absolute. Be smart when you vary your timebox and you really need a disciplined experience well formed team to carry this off.

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