Engineering

Sprint

A sprint is a fixed-length, time-boxed development cycle in Agile/Scrum methodology — typically 1 or 2 weeks — during which a defined set of features or tasks are built, tested, and delivered.

In depth

Sprints come from Scrum, an Agile framework for managing software development. The core idea: break large projects into small, deliverable chunks and review progress frequently.

A sprint lifecycle: 1. Sprint Planning: team selects items from the backlog, estimates effort, commits to a goal 2. Daily Standup: 15-minute daily sync — what did I do yesterday, what am I doing today, any blockers? 3. Development: team builds the committed features 4. Sprint Review: demo of completed work to stakeholders 5. Retrospective: team reflects on process — what went well, what to improve

Sprint vs Kanban: Sprints have fixed duration and planning sessions. Kanban is continuous flow with WIP (work-in-progress) limits. Both are common in startup engineering teams.

For MVP development: we run 21-day sprints (3 weeks) that deliver a complete, production-ready MVP. Founders get daily updates and a weekly demo.

Real example

Week 1 sprint goal: 'Complete authentication, onboarding flow, and dashboard layout.' By end of week, those features are working on staging and the founder has approved the designs.

Related terms

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