Technical stories - are they included on the backlog?

If you're not already a member of the Scrum development group on Yahoo, you really should join. There's a fortune of information changing hands and you can learn so much from the interactions. Just recently there was a huge debate on the topic of technical stories.

What's the ideal sprint length

Introduction

I may have blogged about this previously. I have written so many blogs, I can't recall any more. However questions regarding Sprint length surface on the forums regularly. As per usual, the answers one must give always depends on the context and every context is different than the next. So let me start with the context - this is an excerpt of a post on the scrum development group on Yahoo. Incidentally, Yahoo groups is a good place to hang out. You learn a lot from all the questions and the different contexts facing teams around the world.

Sprint start and stop days - what's best

Firstly, let me state that it is imperative that sprint lengths remain consistent. By all means experiment with 1 week, 2 week or 3 week sprints but once you have figured out your sweet spot, stick to it. This is important to setup a rhythm in the company. However, the question is what days are the best days during the week to start and stop sprints. Until now, I have been a big fan of Monday starts and ending Fridays. It seems to be a natural cadence and the days are logical transition points.

However, this week, there was discussion on the Scrum development forum and a number of folks are in favor of starting on Thursday and ending on Wednesday. Reasons given are as follows:

• There are often holidays on Mondays and Fridays which interrupt the cycle and therefore the rhythm.

• If sprints are a little behind and you end on a Friday, it will force teams to work on the weekends -- generally shunned upon by the Agile community.

• On Fridays, folks generally tend to glide through the demos and retrospectives and as a result there is a drop in productivity.
• Team members work from home on Fridays.

The right answer, let the team decide.

Certainly school for thought. I have to give this a try.

What's been your experience?

Jack