Recently I was listening to an episode of the excellent podcast “Managing Up” where the topic of sprints came up, and why it’s a misnomer. I can only agree with this.
One of the core concepts of Scrum is to work and deliver in fixed time units called “sprints”, which is usually set to one or two weeks. They create an artificial time boundary for planning and executing work tasks in manageable batches where there’s a clear goal or priority, and where the pace is high and has a certain rhythm to it such that there’s enough time to deliver some non-trivial output, but not too long where iterations and changes to the work process become too drawn out. This process is then repeated ad infinitum.
Now contrast that with a literal sprint, which is something you do rarely, in short bursts, and which then require long periods of rests in-between. Since a sprint is really something that we want to maintain for a long time, a word that describes it more accurately would be a jog.
Just like physical activity of different intensity can be maintained for different amounts of time and require different recovery times, so does a team’s wellbeing and output capacity. I’ve been through my fare share of both short and prolonged intensive periods, and the cost of the prolonged periods is in my experience disproportionally larger. The recovery time has a long tail, and usually the team hasn’t fully recovered yet before some other urgent thing pops up, which further builds up the fatigue and exasperates the situation. Multiple sprints that have been intensive should be a red flag and taken seriously. (Note: not to mention, there’s a whole topic of organisational distrust after prolonged intense periods that I’d like to dive into at some point)
With that said, I do believe that short intense bursts are can be very healthy for a team and the individuals for their growth, as long as they are sparse and the stakes aren’t immense. It helps build some execution muscle, gets people engaged, fosters team spirit and builds some memory and history for the team. It’s also highly motivating and rewarding to have been through a period of heightened awareness where everyone brings out their best and see how the team functions during such times.
In short, the workload of sprints should be sustainable in the long run. That means underutilizing the full capacity of the team so that there’s space and room for non-crucial work. That’s when people can do their best work over extended periods of time. The real sprinting should be saved for any crises or major finish lines.