I have been a part of a both 1 week and 2 week sprints throughout my career and have read several opinions on which duration of sprint cycles is best. My opinion? It depends. There can be several factors that can help you determine which duration is best for a team. Below are a few that I have come across.
Table of Contents
Length of Project
A team may consider 1 week sprints for smaller projects. The idea is to obtain feedback with more regularity so your team can identify issues it needs to fix quicker and apply them to the future sprints. These issues may include, for example, a misunderstanding of requirements that came to light during the end of sprint demo to the team’s product owner. In this case, with 1 week sprints, the issue is identified a week earlier than it would have with 2 week sprints. Therefore it would be addressed sooner. It’s important in smaller projects for teams to not fall too far behind so the earlier this feedback is received the better.
For larger projects, 2 week sprints may work better for your team in the long run. While scrum does have a lot of advantages, there is a bit of waste. Albeit, necessary waste. Consider that before each sprint starts, you have your planning meetings and at the end of the sprint you have your demo and retrospective. While each are very important, they do take time and over a long period of time the waste can add up with shorter sprint durations.
Requirement and Backlog Story Rank Stability
If requirements are constantly changing, it may behoove a team to go with the shorter 1 week sprint duration during the instability. As requirements change, the more a team may have to re-plan to adjust estimates and create new tasks. Same goes with product backlog story rankings. If the ranking of stories in project backlog are constantly being updated, 1 week sprints may the way to go so that the team can make sure the higher ranked stories are being worked first.
If the requirements are pretty well settled on as well as the backlog stories ranks, choose the sprint duration that works best for your team based on the factors mentioned here or additional factors you may have identified.
Team’s Level of Experience with Scrum.
If your team is new to Scrum, starting with 1 week sprints could be beneficial. I say this because the team is still learning and the shorter feedback cycle will help accelerate the learning process.
If your team is experienced in Scrum, choose between the 1 and 2 week sprints. Consider the other factors in this post in helping you determine the right sprint cycle for your team.
The Amount of Time the Team Has Been Together.
If your team was recently formed, starting with 1 week sprints is a good way to go, for the same reasons as the previous factor, your team’s Scrum experience. In addition, the shorter cycles will help with team building as there would be frequent interaction and sharing of ideas.
If your team has been together for a while and works well together you may not need the extra overhead of the 1 week sprints. 2 week sprints may be a better fit.
I am sure there are plenty more things to consider but I thought this would be a good list to share for anyone trying to decide what a good sprint duration would be for their team. I encourage you to continue the discussion in the comments section. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the topic. I would be happy to address any questions. Cheers!