Scrum Ceremonies

Scrum has four ceremonies that bring structure to each sprint:

• Sprint Planning Meeting;
• Daily Stand-up Meetings;
• Sprint Review Meeting;
• Sprint Retrospective Meeting;

Sprint Planning Meeting:

Is a collaborative effort involving a Scrum Master, who facilitates the meeting, a Product Owner, who clarifies the details of the product backlog items and their respective acceptance criteria, and the Entire Scrum Team, who define the work and effort necessary to meet their sprint commitment.

Time box: 2 hours (1 week Sprint)/ 4 hours (2 weeks Sprint) / 8 hours (4 weeks Sprint.

Attendees: Scrum Master, Product Owner and Scrum Development Team
This meeting consists of 2 parts:

• “What” is to be developed?: In the first part of the meeting, the Product Owner describes and presents the items that will be delivered during the upcoming Sprint, which are acquired from the Product Backlog based on their business value (MOSCOW prioritisation).
• “How” it will deliver the Sprint Goal?: In the second half of this meeting, the Scrum Team agrees on a scrum sprint goal that defines what the upcoming sprint is supposed to achieve. Then plans in detail which tasks are necessary to fulfill the Sprint Goal and deliver the forecasted sprint Backlog items according to the capacity of the team.

Inputs to Sprint Planning Meeting: Product Backlog and Team velocity

Output of Sprint Planning Meeting: Sprint Backlog and Sprint Goal

Daily Stand-up Meeting:

Each day at the same time and the same place, the team meets for a quick status update. Each team members briefly describes any "completed" contributions and any blockers that stand in their way.

Time box: 15 Minutes

Attendees: Scrum Master, Product Owner and Scrum Team

Inputs to Daily Stand-ups:
During the meeting, each Team member answers the following questions:

• What have I accomplished since the last meeting?
• What am I going to do before the next meeting?
• What blockers are in my way?

Output of Daily Stand-ups:
To keep the meeting short, any topic that starts a discussion is cut short, added to a "parking lot" list, and discussed in greater depth after the meeting, between the people affected by the issue only.

Sprint Review Meeting:

Sprint review is a time to showcase the work of the team. The meeting can be casual or held in a more formal manner. The team demonstrates the work finished by them during the sprint and get feedback from the Product Owner and project stakeholders.

Time box: 0.5 hour (1 week)/ 1.5 hours (2 weeks sprint) / 3 hours (4 weeks sprint)

Attendees: Scrum Master, Product Owner and Scrum Team, relevant stakeholder/Sponsors, users.

After the demonstration the Product Owner and other relevant stakeholders tell their impressions and clarify their requirements (user stories) if a requirement was not implement right. The Product Owner identifies what has been done and what hasn’t been done (according to the Definition of Done).

Inputs to Sprint Review Meeting:
This meeting should not have slides, with the presentation of the results but should have working demonstration of the work planned and delivered in the Sprint planning meeting and meet the quality aspects of the Definition of Done

Output of Sprint Review Meeting:
The Product Owner accepts the user stories that have been done. Results of this meeting can be new requirements in the Product Backlog, and a new prioritization of existing Product Backlog items.

Sprint Retrospection Meeting:

The Sprint Retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint. The Sprint Retrospective occurs after the Sprint Review and prior to the next Sprint Planning.

Time box: 1 hour (1 week)/ 2 hours (2 weeks sprint) / 4 hours (4 weeks sprint)

Attendees: Scrum Master, Product Owner and Scrum Team

Inputs to Sprint Retrospection Meeting:
During the meeting the team discusses the just-concluded sprint and determines what could be changed that might make the next sprint more productive, in regards to people, relationships, process and tools.

Output of Sprint Retrospection:
The sprint review looks at what the team is building, whereas the retrospective looks at how they are building it. By the end of the Sprint Retrospective, the Team should have identified actionable improvement measures that they will implement in the next Sprint.

The Scrum ceremonies are used to create regularity and to minimize the need for meetings outside these ceremonies. Other than the Sprint itself, which is a container for all Scrum ceremonies, each ceremony in Scrum is a chance to inspect and adapt something. Their goal is to enable transparency and adaptation throughout the project life cycle and that’s why they should not be neglected.