The leadership of the company I’m at is forcing all teams to do 1 week sprints instead of 2 because they believe that they can get more out of the teams and get better visibility into progress. We’ve debated for months that teams aren’t getting enough upfront time to plan while still taking on the same meeting load as 2 week sprints basically every week. All the engineers, leads and product leads want to as well. I don’t know what to do anymore. All the teams are getting burned out from meeting overload and not enough prep time. Any advice?
Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
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Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#2Delete every meeting that isn’t directly related to either tracking the sprint, working on items on the sprint, or personnel management/growth, and then spent your time doing the work.
Or quit, I guess, if the difference between 1 and 2 week sprints is a deal breaker for you.
Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#3Start looking for your next job. When you land somewhere, bring with anyone worth bringing with. This assumes you have no leverage to prevent them from squeezing you and the team(s) harder.
Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#4Honestly, quit.
Anyone still sticking to Scrum is already behind the times on creating an enjoyable work environment. If they are pushing for shorter sprints, they are doubling down on what makes it bad, not what makes it good.
I'm all for trying to make a place better before giving up, but this is one of the few leadership decisions that are an exception to my ideals. I would just walk out the door, no hesitation.
Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#5for me the problem here is an org that debates sprint length for months
Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#6Adjust estimates accordingly?
Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#7They just want faster delivery? Or more meaningful progress tracking?
Usually I find I want improved traceability of the work, and so that means clearly calling out:
planning, defining, scoping and building.
If those on the left are poorly completed that in the right will suffer.
Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#8Start looking for a new job... once a company starts going down that path, they're bleeding to death and trying to band-aid it. It won't work. It's a sign of desperation and poor management that usually won't be reversible.
Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#9Break every story into an obscenely large number of subtasks or tickets and bury the backlog. Make it so large that the amount of time sorting and planning will take most of the week. Stick to the work in each ticket and don't work on the next ones until the sprint is closed.
Re: Ask HN: My company is forcing 1 week sprints. What should I do?
#10They just want faster delivery? Or more meaningful progress tracking? Usually I find I want improved traceability of the work, and so that means clearly calling out: planning, defining, scoping and building. If those on the left are poorly completed that in the right will suffer.
Yeah this is exactly what we’re seeing too.