May 6, 2024 • 10 mins
Let's review the core components and rituals of a sprint cycle and how you can apply those to your personal goals and projects.
Link to the video version of this episode.
Timestamps:
- (00:00) - - Overview
- (00:20) - - Creating backlog
- (01:51) - - Calculating sprint capacity
- (02:18) - - Deciding on the number of goals for the sprint
- (02:57) - - Sprint planning and scrum board
- (03:54) - - Duration of a sprint
- (05:05) - - Daily standups
- (05:37) - - Sprint retrospective
- (05:57) - - Cool-off week
- (08:18) - - Repeat the cycle
- (09:15) - - Where to start
- (10:19) - - If you don't want to wait for the next video
Useful links
- Subscribe to my newsletter for more frequent deep-dives into Agile life
- Recent newsletter entries
- Start Here page to see the blogposts on the core principles of Agile and how those can be applied to personal productivity
- Twitter for regular examples of my scrum board and how it looks throughout the sprint
- YouTube to 'Back to Agile Basics' type of videos
- Monthly Method School for step-by-step instructions on how to run your first Agile sprint ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Polina Bee (00:00):
So you say, I'm convinced, and I want to try
this Agile framework. How do Ido it? So let's start with the
quick overview of the wholeagile cycle, the sprint cycle. I
will go into each detailseparately in a separate video.
Otherwise, it's gonna be a longvideo.
I just want to give anintroduction. So the agile
(00:21):
method starts with the backlog.It's a document where you record
all your ideas, all your goals,all your tasks, all the projects
that you have to do, you want todo, you were asked to do, all of
that. It's just one place. Fornow, it doesn't have to be
organized.
I use notes app on my phone. SoI have an iPhone and a MacBook
(00:48):
laptop, and I use notes becauseit comes already installed in
both of these devices, and theyare synced. So if I'm out of and
about and I have an idea, Irecord it in my note file. If
I'm sitting on my computer andI'm working, I can quickly open
it up and record it. You canalso use the physical notebook.
(01:11):
You will see that I am a bigadvocate of analog system, and
backlog is probably the onlywell, backlog and the calendar
are the only things that aredigital in this whole system.
Everything else is analog.Things you want to do, things
you need to do, things you haveto do, things you might want to
do. Everything goes in there.But you don't act on it.
(01:33):
It just it's it holds all of it.And then before you first print,
you sit down and you look atyour backlog. You can organize
it quickly. Doesn't have to beanything advanced, maybe a few
columns, maybe priority,something like that. And then
you look at your calendar.
(01:55):
You want to grasp the idea ofsprint capacity. Again, another
video on that is coming. Butlong story short, based on your
calendar, based on your seasonof life, based on your kid's
schedule for the next 2, 3, 4weeks, whatever your duration of
the sprint is. What's yoursprint capacity? How much time
(02:19):
do you have?
And based on that, you decidethe number of calls that you
pick. There's always a limit.For me, the absolute maximum is
5. 5, project based goals persprint. It can go lower if I'm
traveling, if I have a lot ofdeadlines, if it's a busy season
(02:40):
at work.
It can go to 3 goals, 2 goals,but it never exceeds 5 goals.
That's what I found by tryingand for the last 10 years so I
am pretty confident at thislimit but there has to be a
limit. Okay. So you looked atyour sprint capacity. You
decided how many goals you wantto do, then you do the sprint
planning.
(03:01):
It's an important step. Thereare different things that you
have to do. You have to pickyour goals. You have to write
the definition of done, and thenput it all on the scrum board. I
use a physical scrum board formyself because I found it to be
the most effective method.
It's the simplest. It's thecleanest. It's the one that
(03:22):
truly works. I've tried all thedigital tools. I've tried all
the apps on the planet.
I can probably give you alecture on all of them. And the
physical Scrum board, an analogScrum board is the one that
works the best for me. And Iactually find that for a lot of
people who try it, they rarelygo bad. You put everything on
(03:45):
the scrum board, and that's kindof completes your sprint
planning portion of the sprint.And then your sprint starts.
What is a good duration of asprint? Traditionally, it's
between 2 to 6 weeks. I alwayssay that it should be short
enough for you to feel thatdeadline approaching. So if 6
(04:08):
weeks, it's too far in thefuture and you don't really feel
that little pressure, littlenudge, to get things done, then
it's too long. You have to reuseit.
But it should be long enough toactually get something
substantial done. We don't wantto be at, like, 3 days because
you can really do you can reallyship anything good in 3 days. A
(04:29):
lot of things require a longerperiod of time because agile is
created for the project basedgoals, finite goals, something
that ends at the end of thesprint, something that you can
ship to the world. Say, like,I'm done here. I've done it.
Check it out. You can send it.You can email it. You can,
(04:51):
invite people to your home andsay, hey. Look.
I've painted this wall. So thisis a finite project. So it
should be long enough for you toactually complete it, to move it
all the way from to do to done.During this sprint, you have
daily stand ups. It's basicallyeveryday it's a ritual.
You come and you look at yourscrum board and you decide what
(05:16):
makes the most sense to focus ontoday. You kind of, like, move
things around. You select againa very limited number of tasks
to do. So for me, I usually pickno more than 3 tasks for the
day, and then those become mycore priorities. And then at the
(05:38):
end of the sprint, you do thesprint retrospective.
It's a whole ritual. I'll doanother video on that. But the
main goal is to actually reviewyour sprint even if it's not
perfect, even if you haven'tfinished everything, and learn
from it. Learned what worked,what didn't, how you can improve
(05:58):
going forward. But before youjump into the next sprint, what
I implemented, and that's notthe part of agile, but that's
the part that I think is crucialis I have the cool off week.
So between one sprint andanother. So my sprints are 3
weeks in length. So 3 weeks ofsprinting, working hard on my
(06:21):
goals, and then 1 week off.Doesn't mean I go on vacation
and just spend time on a week. Istill work.
I still do some things. I stillshow up on my calls. I still
show up for my clients, answeremails, and all of that. I even
sometimes schedule some choresto to get done during that week.
(06:41):
But the main goal is for you toactually kind of, like, take it
easy.
Take it to the maintenance levelwhere it's like you're, like,
holding things. You're just,like, doing things on them for
maintenance level so the thewhole place doesn't fall apart,
that your clients don't fireyou, that you don't lose your
job, that your house is notfalling apart. So it's like very
(07:05):
bare minimum. You let yourselfrest. You let yourself reflect.
Because again, your brain is notgonna give you all the answers
during the sprint retrospective.You need to have some space to
actually really reflect on whathappened and also some space to
plan for your next sprint. Tokind of, like, think, okay. What
(07:27):
do you want to focus on in thenext sprint? It also allows you
to rest.
Scheduled break is the numberone recipe for avoiding burnout.
I like to say that you will haveyour break. Your body will force
you to have a break. Break. It'sit's either you're in control of
this break and you schedule itregularly.
(07:50):
Or your body will force you totake this break via getting
sick, going through the burnout,going through some emotional
breakdown. It will happen,unavoidably. I would rather be
scheduling it on my own termsand giving this break on a
regular basis than kind ofrisking it all and letting it
(08:15):
happen in such a bad way when ithappens. So after the cool off
week, you start this wholeprocess again. You look at your
backlog, which you've updatedduring the sprint because you
had new ideas come in.
You had new requests come in.And instead of jumping straight
into these projects, yourecorded them in your backlog.
(08:36):
And now all these ideas competefor the next sprint. It it's
kind of like a competition. Allthese ideas have to compete for
the spot to be on your Scrumboard.
And there are only 5 spotsduring the best times. Well, for
me, for you, it might bedifferent. And so you, again,
look at your sprint capacity,decide on the number of goals,
pick the goals that are thewinners that you think are the
(08:59):
best things for you to focus onduring this sprint, pick your
sprint focus, and do this wholeprocess again. So this is the
overview of the sprint cycle. Iwill go through every step in a
separate video.
For now, if you want to actuallystart implementing this process,
I will start with the backlog.Create a file that is easily
(09:23):
synced between your phone andyour computer, something that
you have easy access to. Whenyou go grocery shopping and
something pops into your mind,where do you want to record it?
Because your ideas, your bestideas never happen when you're
seated at your desk. They happenwhen you're out and about, when
you're walking, when you'redoing dishes, and all of that.
(09:45):
So you have to have an easyplace to record these things.
Again, I recommend a notes file,a notes document that is synced.
Nothing fancy. No apps. Noproductivity apps.
Nothing. A simple text file isgood enough. That's what I use.
And then start recordingeverything that you think you
(10:06):
want to do in the next sprint,you don't have to prioritize
now. You don't have to clean itup.
You don't have to write it insome specific ways. Just start
dumping. Dump in all the ideasonto this file and do it for the
next week. If you want to startdoing this process faster, I've
been blogging about it for thelast 3 years. I have a website,
(10:27):
monthlymethod.com, where I wrotemore than 70 articles on this
topic.
Go to start here page and thereyou'll find links to sprint
planning, backlog, daily standups, all of that. It's already
there. It's just in text format.But if you are not into reading,
(10:50):
it's okay. You can wait for thenext video, and then I'll walk
you through the next step.
Happy sprinting. See you nexttime.
So you say, I'm convinced, and I want to try
this Agile framework. How do Ido it? So let's start with the
quick overview of the wholeagile cycle, the sprint cycle. I
will go into each detailseparately in a separate video.
Otherwise, it's gonna be a longvideo.
I just want to give anintroduction. So the agile
(00:21):
method starts with the backlog.It's a document where you record
all your ideas, all your goals,all your tasks, all the projects
that you have to do, you want todo, you were asked to do, all of
that. It's just one place. Fornow, it doesn't have to be
organized.
I use notes app on my phone. SoI have an iPhone and a MacBook
(00:48):
laptop, and I use notes becauseit comes already installed in
both of these devices, and theyare synced. So if I'm out of and
about and I have an idea, Irecord it in my note file. If
I'm sitting on my computer andI'm working, I can quickly open
it up and record it. You canalso use the physical notebook.
(01:11):
You will see that I am a bigadvocate of analog system, and
backlog is probably the onlywell, backlog and the calendar
are the only things that aredigital in this whole system.
Everything else is analog.Things you want to do, things
you need to do, things you haveto do, things you might want to
do. Everything goes in there.But you don't act on it.
(01:33):
It just it's it holds all of it.And then before you first print,
you sit down and you look atyour backlog. You can organize
it quickly. Doesn't have to beanything advanced, maybe a few
columns, maybe priority,something like that. And then
you look at your calendar.
(01:55):
You want to grasp the idea ofsprint capacity. Again, another
video on that is coming. Butlong story short, based on your
calendar, based on your seasonof life, based on your kid's
schedule for the next 2, 3, 4weeks, whatever your duration of
the sprint is. What's yoursprint capacity? How much time
(02:19):
do you have?
And based on that, you decidethe number of calls that you
pick. There's always a limit.For me, the absolute maximum is
5. 5, project based goals persprint. It can go lower if I'm
traveling, if I have a lot ofdeadlines, if it's a busy season
(02:40):
at work.
It can go to 3 goals, 2 goals,but it never exceeds 5 goals.
That's what I found by tryingand for the last 10 years so I
am pretty confident at thislimit but there has to be a
limit. Okay. So you looked atyour sprint capacity. You
decided how many goals you wantto do, then you do the sprint
planning.
(03:01):
It's an important step. Thereare different things that you
have to do. You have to pickyour goals. You have to write
the definition of done, and thenput it all on the scrum board. I
use a physical scrum board formyself because I found it to be
the most effective method.
It's the simplest. It's thecleanest. It's the one that
(03:22):
truly works. I've tried all thedigital tools. I've tried all
the apps on the planet.
I can probably give you alecture on all of them. And the
physical Scrum board, an analogScrum board is the one that
works the best for me. And Iactually find that for a lot of
people who try it, they rarelygo bad. You put everything on
(03:45):
the scrum board, and that's kindof completes your sprint
planning portion of the sprint.And then your sprint starts.
What is a good duration of asprint? Traditionally, it's
between 2 to 6 weeks. I alwayssay that it should be short
enough for you to feel thatdeadline approaching. So if 6
(04:08):
weeks, it's too far in thefuture and you don't really feel
that little pressure, littlenudge, to get things done, then
it's too long. You have to reuseit.
But it should be long enough toactually get something
substantial done. We don't wantto be at, like, 3 days because
you can really do you can reallyship anything good in 3 days. A
(04:29):
lot of things require a longerperiod of time because agile is
created for the project basedgoals, finite goals, something
that ends at the end of thesprint, something that you can
ship to the world. Say, like,I'm done here. I've done it.
Check it out. You can send it.You can email it. You can,
(04:51):
invite people to your home andsay, hey. Look.
I've painted this wall. So thisis a finite project. So it
should be long enough for you toactually complete it, to move it
all the way from to do to done.During this sprint, you have
daily stand ups. It's basicallyeveryday it's a ritual.
You come and you look at yourscrum board and you decide what
(05:16):
makes the most sense to focus ontoday. You kind of, like, move
things around. You select againa very limited number of tasks
to do. So for me, I usually pickno more than 3 tasks for the
day, and then those become mycore priorities. And then at the
(05:38):
end of the sprint, you do thesprint retrospective.
It's a whole ritual. I'll doanother video on that. But the
main goal is to actually reviewyour sprint even if it's not
perfect, even if you haven'tfinished everything, and learn
from it. Learned what worked,what didn't, how you can improve
(05:58):
going forward. But before youjump into the next sprint, what
I implemented, and that's notthe part of agile, but that's
the part that I think is crucialis I have the cool off week.
So between one sprint andanother. So my sprints are 3
weeks in length. So 3 weeks ofsprinting, working hard on my
(06:21):
goals, and then 1 week off.Doesn't mean I go on vacation
and just spend time on a week. Istill work.
I still do some things. I stillshow up on my calls. I still
show up for my clients, answeremails, and all of that. I even
sometimes schedule some choresto to get done during that week.
(06:41):
But the main goal is for you toactually kind of, like, take it
easy.
Take it to the maintenance levelwhere it's like you're, like,
holding things. You're just,like, doing things on them for
maintenance level so the thewhole place doesn't fall apart,
that your clients don't fireyou, that you don't lose your
job, that your house is notfalling apart. So it's like very
(07:05):
bare minimum. You let yourselfrest. You let yourself reflect.
Because again, your brain is notgonna give you all the answers
during the sprint retrospective.You need to have some space to
actually really reflect on whathappened and also some space to
plan for your next sprint. Tokind of, like, think, okay. What
(07:27):
do you want to focus on in thenext sprint? It also allows you
to rest.
Scheduled break is the numberone recipe for avoiding burnout.
I like to say that you will haveyour break. Your body will force
you to have a break. Break. It'sit's either you're in control of
this break and you schedule itregularly.
(07:50):
Or your body will force you totake this break via getting
sick, going through the burnout,going through some emotional
breakdown. It will happen,unavoidably. I would rather be
scheduling it on my own termsand giving this break on a
regular basis than kind ofrisking it all and letting it
(08:15):
happen in such a bad way when ithappens. So after the cool off
week, you start this wholeprocess again. You look at your
backlog, which you've updatedduring the sprint because you
had new ideas come in.
You had new requests come in.And instead of jumping straight
into these projects, yourecorded them in your backlog.
(08:36):
And now all these ideas competefor the next sprint. It it's
kind of like a competition. Allthese ideas have to compete for
the spot to be on your Scrumboard.
And there are only 5 spotsduring the best times. Well, for
me, for you, it might bedifferent. And so you, again,
look at your sprint capacity,decide on the number of goals,
pick the goals that are thewinners that you think are the
(08:59):
best things for you to focus onduring this sprint, pick your
sprint focus, and do this wholeprocess again. So this is the
overview of the sprint cycle. Iwill go through every step in a
separate video.
For now, if you want to actuallystart implementing this process,
I will start with the backlog.Create a file that is easily
(09:23):
synced between your phone andyour computer, something that
you have easy access to. Whenyou go grocery shopping and
something pops into your mind,where do you want to record it?
Because your ideas, your bestideas never happen when you're
seated at your desk. They happenwhen you're out and about, when
you're walking, when you'redoing dishes, and all of that.
(09:45):
So you have to have an easyplace to record these things.
Again, I recommend a notes file,a notes document that is synced.
Nothing fancy. No apps. Noproductivity apps.
Nothing. A simple text file isgood enough. That's what I use.
And then start recordingeverything that you think you
(10:06):
want to do in the next sprint,you don't have to prioritize
now. You don't have to clean itup.
You don't have to write it insome specific ways. Just start
dumping. Dump in all the ideasonto this file and do it for the
next week. If you want to startdoing this process faster, I've
been blogging about it for thelast 3 years. I have a website,
(10:27):
monthlymethod.com, where I wrotemore than 70 articles on this
topic.
Go to start here page and thereyou'll find links to sprint
planning, backlog, daily standups, all of that. It's already
there. It's just in text format.But if you are not into reading,
(10:50):
it's okay. You can wait for thenext video, and then I'll walk
you through the next step.
Happy sprinting. See you nexttime.
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