Sprint Or Marathon?

I’m not particularly fond of the term “sprint”.

The word “sprint” often gives the impression that the team needs to prioritize on working as fast as possible. And inadvertently creates pressure to complete every user story before the end of the sprint, sometimes at the expense of quality, or by allowing technical debt to build up.

In reality, agile development is more like a marathon, where we maintain a healthy, steady, sustainable pace. It’s not a relay race where teams sprint as fast as they can, trying not to drop the baton at the end of each leg.

That’s why I prefer using the term “iteration”. It feels more aligned with the principles of agile: delivering value consistently and sustainably.

Question for your team: How much pressure do you feel to complete all the stories within a sprint? Would the project benefit from reducing this pressure and allowing stories to roll over into the next sprint, enabling us to focus more on maintaining high quality?