YDS: What is Sprint-0?

[@jaykay999]

the real issue is that if you avoid the sprint 0 in scrum, how could you make an initial design which it self is a process that takes time and developers cant code until they have the initial design atleast

[@CS-mq1gd]

Todd/Ryan - One of the things about Sprint 0 that I have come across is getting to Architecture nirvana. As recent as couple of weeks back, an arguement I had encountered was Scrum is too free flow. People want to put guard rails around it. My answer was pointing them to scrum guide where it mentions all SCRUM Teams are cross-functional which means they have all necessary skill sets to build the Increment. My recommendation was to add an Architect as part of Scrum Team, which was not widely accepted (struggling with mindset shift). How do you tackle this scenario and question 2:- People think that Scrum is about being "quick and dirty" and hence tech debt gets bigger as we progress. Is this considered an anti-pattern thinking? How do you ensure tech debt is not accumulated through Scrum practice? Thanks for the daily dose! Loved the minimum but sufficient idea today.

[@derekwright3631]

We have a scrum master that want to use Sprint 0 because the team is struggling. I did not believe in sprint 0, I think Empiricism would be the key. The struggling team knowledge will come from experience. Thank you guy!

[@gouravrawat8190]

This was Interview question and also asked about Spikes

[@veccher]

that's funny, i'm in a sprint 0 right now, as a SM i feel kinda unconfortable, the idea is to work 3 months planning and then start with scrum, the excuse i give to myself is: we are still hiring the team, so without devs we couldn't start with scrum even if we wanted to, so planning meanwhile does no harm, but i'm among a lot of people who loves this planning approach, and they're far more experienced than me, my boss as example got a "disciplined agile senior scrum master" certification by PMI, and he is the one who proposed this 3 month planning approach, i can make them know my opinion, but i get a hard time convincing them all to follow me. Between us, in the end i feel kinda relieved, i see it as inefective, but it would be scary, to go against everyone take all responsability for the product and face the consequences with so few experience (i've been a SM since july-20). Maybe i lack the "Courage" the scrum guide demands me, i'll get there, but it may take some time.

[@divakarbagari2929]

Is it acceptable if the sprint 1 doesn’t lead to a potentially shippable increment?

[@laverndowsley8850]

The organization I just left was reluctantly agile. We had a sprint 0 for every net new project. There are a lot of reasons as to why we had a sprint 0 i.e. SOW creation, setting up environments, hiring and having JAD sessions etc. One thing I did appreciate was the sprint 0 exit criteria we created. Meaning due to experience we knew that sprint 1 could not start until certain things were in place.

[@AgileforHumans]

What were the Sprint-0 exit criteria?

[@laverndowsley8850]

@@AgileforHumans The environments had to be set up and fully functional, enough user stories in the backlog for 2-3 sprints, new hire onboarding was complete, SOW signoff, stuff like that. We found it necessary to create these guidelines because there were too many project teams that were forced to start and not set up for success. They were literally left to flounder for several sprints, under pressure to produce without even the basics in place.

[@clairebayoda8325]

@@laverndowsley8850 I couldn't agree more. Our team do a lot of tech assessments, complete sign-off, hiring vendors, risk assessment, compliance, Infrastructure etc. a lot of preparation before the Sprint 1 starts.

[@TheAccountless]

Hey guys, can you do one on hardening sprints ? How can we fix the tendency to opt for hardening sprints when we have to much bugs in our releases ?

[@apanamakamu]

One Question for a future video: Can a scrum team have a project manager AND a scrum master at the same time? It is even encouraged? Update: I just saw the video on 'can a manager be a scrum master'. But maybe my question can be an extension of that previous video? Thanks. Update2: I just saw 'How Does a Manager Work With a Scrum Team?'. And i think it has answered my question. Thanks.

[@sylviafondikum1020]

Thanks very much for your insight. I am very new to the scrum and agile world. I have this one Question. When introducing Scrum to a new company, can this initial introduction be considered Sprint zero?

[@AgileforHumans]

Maybe? Our encouragement is that a team delivers something valuable by the end of Sprint 1.

[@mikechiks983]

While I understand your view, I do not completely agree. I say it depends on the circumstances. It depends on what Sprint 0 means for the team and the activities you carry out. I do agree that it shouldn't be a time to gather requirements and have everything you need in place, but there are circumstances where they make sense. Give you an example. I was made Scrum Master in a brand new team - new developers, testers, analysts...coming together. We were introduced to a PO who as you know, will provide guidance and maximize value of what the team will be working on. When we had our first meeting though, we were told the details aren't ready, there were decisions yet to be made, etc... we would get some idea and epics/stories to start working on in 2 weeks. What do you do? Say no you must give us something. Meanwhile the team, I found, mostly do not have access to 4 of the systems we'll be working with; the organisation has a procedure for requesting a Jira be opened for your team/project. The analysts and testers confirmed they haven't worked in our world before. So, I decided to use this waiting time as Sprint 0 to raise system access requests, request and establish team Jira; arranged short internal training, set up teams confluence page and Teams channels; arranged intro for team to meet and greet; arranged working agreement and details of ceremonies (dates/times); ensure we work with PO to refine stories ready for Sprint 1; developed holiday tracker and planned out availabilities and capacities for the next 2 sprints. All these items I created as stories into a backlog and moved all into Sprint 0 (2 wks). We started daily standup with Sprint 0 goal being to set team up to start Sprint 1. In part, my goal was to also use the time to immediately get the team into the groove of scrum sprints. This sprint actually helped me understand where everyone is at. It becomes a problem when the goal isn't realistic, the team wants all infrastructure and requirements in place, etc.. I think every team should prepare and set themselves up just enough to hit the ground running. No point starting Sprint 1 without epics/stories to even start planning with - makes no sense to me.

[@earlnoli]

why not sprint-0 of 2 weeks? I mean 1 or 0 but not rush it. I guess it depends how mature your Scrum Master is especially if that person is not technical and micromanager.

[@artsom]

They mentioned a 6-mo sprint 0 because it's so easy to criticize it as non-agile and that would be a regression back to waterfall.