At work, we're in the midst of a push to meet a deadline. Essentially, we're sprinting. As we've been sprinting, I've noticed something...
It seems like the language of agile has warped our collective understanding - as software developers - of what it means to sprint. A sprint is, by definition, a short burst of intensity. You give high effort for a short amount of time to see how far you can go.
My team's sprint to deliver something this week is a great example of high effort toward a goal.
But once you reach the goal, you stop sprinting! You return to a more reasonable cadence. Reasonably, you might expect to rest after a sprint. Indeed, nobody should expect high effort & maximum output for very long. Sprints are exhausting & should happen infrequently with clear goals.
And that's one major gripe I have with agile/scrum methodology... You're always sprinting. It's literally the name for a two-week (ish) period. But it doesn't let up & you feel like you're on a constant treadmill of more sprinting.
This is an aspect I've enjoyed about my current team. We don't bother much with the ceremonies or language of agile. We have clearly defined projects & milestones, but we revisit how we organize and prioritize our work every week. It's not about sprinting, story points, or velocity. We just work on projects until they're done. Sometimes we have a deadline we want to meet, like this week. But other times, we set our expectations & work methodically to deliver good software.
You can't sprint forever. We're harming our teams when we behave and speak otherwise.
P.S. - This is similar to my ideas on systems needing slack