How Long Can You Sprint?
From a fitness perspective, sprinting is considered a high-intensity workout.
It requires adequate warm-up prior and should include recovery periods between each attempt. (i.e. sprint for 6 seconds, rest for 20–30 seconds). And even when you sprint, many experts recommend you do not go “all out” to avoid complete muscular failure.
So why do agile teams borrow the term “Sprint” to describe their work?
They use the term to imply an intense focus on a short-term goal.
But for knowledge workers, how long can you sustainably maintain that intensity and focus? i.e.
- Where is your “rest period” after a sprint?
- How good is your “warm up” in getting the requirements prior to a sprint?
- Where is the “avoiding going all-out” to avoid burnout?
We often find the goal becomes high velocity — and the team is asked to continue to churn more and burn hotter.
But that’s not the true goal of agile software development.
The true goal is a sustainable work cadence.
How sustainable is yours?
