Articles

In this article, we'll discuss how Agile leaders effectively manage time using timeboxing techniques, ensuring productivity, prioritization, and optimal project outcomes in the dynamic world of Scrum.

Time-boxing is a technique to limit the time spent to accomplish a task. A fixed amount of time is allocated to complete each process and activity in a scrum project. After the allocated time is over the task or goal is either accomplished or incomplete, but the time cannot be extended.

Why Time-boxing?

Time-boxing ensures that Scrum Team members do not take up too much or too little work for a particular period of time and do not expend their time and energy on work for which they have little clarity. Time-boxing is a technique for Risk Management that helps in identifying uncertain task/time relationships, i.e., tasks that may extend beyond their deadline. Scrum treats time as one of the most important constraints in managing a project. Scrum involves several short meetings (Sprint planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective).  In the Conduct Daily Standup process, the duration of the Daily Standup Meeting is Time-boxed. If these meetings are not boxed, there is a high risk that these meetings would become general discussions and consume considerable amounts of time and energy from all participants. Time-boxing is a critical practice in Scrum and should be applied with care. Arbitrary Time-boxing can lead to de-motivation of the team and may have the consequence of creating an apprehensive environment, so it should be used appropriately.

Some of the advantages of Time-boxing are as follows:

• Efficient development process
• Less overheads
• High velocity for teams
• More focused teams
• Well-prepared team members

Scrum Time-boxes:

Sprint: To achieve maximum benefits from a Scrum project and to provide maximum flexibility for change, the length of a Sprint should be as short as possible.

Daily Standup Meeting: The daily standup meeting should not exceed 15 minutes. The team members discuss the following:

a) What have I done since the last meeting?

b) What do I plan to do before the next meeting?

c) What impediments or obstacles (if any) am I currently facing?

Sprint Planning Meeting: This meeting is conducted prior to each Sprint as part of the Commit User Stories, Identify Tasks, Estimate Tasks, and Update Sprint Backlog processes. It is Time-boxed to two hours for each week of Sprint duration.

Sprint Review Meeting: The Sprint Review Meeting is constrained to a time-box of one hour per week of the Sprint duration. For instance, in a four-week Sprint, the time-box for the Sprint Review Meeting should be four hours.

Retrospect Sprint Meeting: The Retrospect Sprint Meeting is Time-boxed to one hour for each week of the Sprint duration. For example, for a four-week Sprint, the Time-box for the Retrospect Sprint Meeting should be four hours. This meeting is conducted as part of the Retrospect Sprint process. During this meeting, the Scrum Team gets together to review and reflect on the current Sprint in terms of the processes followed, tools employed, collaboration and communication mechanisms, and other aspects relevant to the project.

Scrum treats time as one of the most important constraints in managing a project. To address the constraint of time, Scrum introduces a concept called ‘Time-boxing’ which proposes fixing a certain amount of time for each process and activity in a Scrum project. This ensures that Scrum Team members do not take up too much or too little work for a particular period of time and do not expend their time and energy on work for which they have little clarity. Some of the advantages of Time-boxing are as follows:

• Efficient development process
• Less overheads
• High velocity for teams
• More focused teams
• Well-prepared team members

Time-boxing can be utilized in many Scrum processes, for example, in the Conduct Daily Standup process, the duration of the Daily Standup Meeting is Time-boxed. At times, Time-boxing may be used to avoid excessive improvement of an item (i.e., gold-plating). Time-boxing is a critical practice in Scrum and should be applied with care. Arbitrary Time-boxing can lead to de-motivation of the team and may have the consequence of creating an apprehensive environment, so it should be used appropriately.

What Is Timeboxing

Timeboxing is a practice in Scrum in which a fixed duration of time is allocated to many activities or events within the Scrum framework. Here in this case the Scrum timeboxes that enforce discipline, create urgency to accomplish those Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Sprint Reviews, and Sprint Retrospectives proficiently and constructively. Scrum teams are recommended to focus on the highest priority items, prioritize work and maintain a consistent pace in the sprint cycle, to help they do this, each event has time limits established. Timeboxing…Time-box time prevents analysis paralysis, team work, and continuous iteration are promoted by Scrum.

The following meetings are listed in the guide to the Scrum Body of Knowledge –

Sprint 

A Sprint is a Time-boxed iteration of one to six weeks in duration during which the Scrum Master guides, facilitates, and shields the Scrum Team from both internal and external impediments during the Create Deliverables process. This aids in avoiding vision creep that could affect the Sprint goal. During this time, the team works to convert the requirements in the Prioritized Product Backlog into shippable product functionalities. To achieve maximum benefits from a Scrum project and to provide maximum flexibility for change, the length of a Sprint should be as short as possible. At the same time, the Sprint must be long enough for the team to be able to create a working or shippable product deliverable which can be reviewed and approved by the Product Owner.

Daily Standup Meeting

The Daily Standup Meeting is a short daily meeting, Time-boxed to 15 minutes. The team members get together to report the progress of the project by answering the following three questions:
1. What have I done since last meeting?
2. What do I plan to do before the next meeting?
3. What impediments or obstacles (if any) am I currently facing?
This meeting is carried out by the team as part of the Conduct Daily Standup process.

Sprint Planning Meeting

This meeting is conducted prior to each Sprint as part of the Commit User Stories, Identify Tasks, Estimate Tasks, and Update Sprint Backlog processes. It is Time-boxed to two hours for each week of Sprint duration. For example, for a one-month/four-week Sprint, the Time-box for a Sprint Planning Meeting should be eight hours.

1. Objective Definition—During the first half of the meeting, the Product Owner explains the highest priority User Stories or requirements in the Prioritized Product Backlog to the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team in collaboration with the Product Owner then defines the Sprint goal.
2. Task Estimation —During the latter part of the session, the Scrum Team determines the approach for completing the chosen Prioritized Product Backlog Items to meet the Sprint goal. Occasionally, the Task Planning Meetings (held during the Create Tasks process) and the Task Estimation Meetings (conducted in the Estimate Tasks process) are also labeled as Sprint Planning Meetings.

Sprint Review Meeting 

The Sprint Review Meeting is Time-boxed to one hour for each week of the Sprint duration. For example, for a four-week Sprint, the Time-box for the Sprint Review Meeting should be four hours. During the Sprint Review Meeting that is conducted in the Demonstrate and Validate Sprint process, the Scrum Team presents the deliverables of the current Sprint to the Product Owner. The Product Owner reviews the product (or product increment) against the agreed Acceptance Criteria and either accepts or rejects the completed User Stories.

Retrospect Sprint Meeting

The Retrospect Sprint Meeting is Time-boxed to one hour for each week of the Sprint duration. For example, for a four-week Sprint, the Time-box for the Retrospect Sprint Meeting should be four hours. This meeting is conducted as part of the Retrospect Sprint process. During this meeting, the Scrum Team gets together to review and reflect on the current Sprint in terms of the processes followed, tools employed, collaboration and communication mechanisms, and other aspects relevant to the project. The team discusses what went well during the previous Sprint and what did not go well, the goal being to learn and make improvements in the Sprints to follow. Some improvement opportunities or best practices from this meeting could also be updated as part of the Scrum Guidance Body documents.