Comments on: Mid-week Iterations

By: David Annis

David Annis — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:49:04 +0000

Our two week iteration/spint schedule starts on a Wednesday and finishes on a Tuesday with our Demo/Retrospectives. We did this because starting and finishing mid-week helps lesson the impact from holidays, vacations, illness, etc.

By: James Nicholls

James Nicholls — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:35:06 +0000

We do Monday to Friday cycles on just about everything however I am not a big fan of them. There’s an assumption inherent in a Mon to Fri cycle that people are on the ball and as motivated every day of the week whereas I think that most people are less motivated Monday and Friday compared to the middle 2 days. Certainly I am. I’d rather have the Friday and the following Monday in the middle of an activity, what ever it is, and have the important kick off and end stages mid week.

By: Laurent Carbonnaux

Laurent Carbonnaux — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:23:19 +0000

Hi all,
Due to constraint of our customer, we are ending iteration on tuesday and start on wednesday. In fact, I use that to stop pure development on friday the week before and do last regression testing and refactoring on Monday. Then a complete Tuesday is for demo and retrospective. It provides the team a kind of small boxed time of 2 days to achieve iteration.

By: Chris Babcock

Chris Babcock — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:39:25 +0000

I’ve scheduled iterations/sprints (we run two week iterations) to start on Wednesdays for years. While it can be tempting to use the natural cadence of the week, it’s more beneficial to avoid Fridays and Mondays. For some unknown reason, those two days are the most popular days for vacations, sickness, and holidays. Plus I think teams can lose momentum from one iteration to the next by waiting a weekend.

Instead we put the finishing touches on a release Tuesday afternoon, review Wednesday morning, and plan the next iteration that afternoon. Retrospectives are usually scheduled for the next day to let the dust settle and avoid spending an entire day in meetings.

By: Thomas La Zelle

Thomas La Zelle — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:45:08 +0000

Currently my team runs 1 week iterations (5 business days) with 2 slack days in between the end of the iteration and the beginning of the next. The fast pace works very well because it allows for the business to change the direction of the team very quickly. We have our iteration planning meeting during our slack days. We have really adopted a Plan, Do, Check, Act methodology that works very well and as a result it does not matter what day of the week we start or end our iteration on. The planning of work is never ending and even after we have finalized our iteration we continue to plan during the currently running iteration.

By: Jaggumantri Srinivas

Jaggumantri Srinivas — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:27:24 +0000

We usually follow monthly cycles, so 1 of the month is the start for new sprint. The demo and retrospective gets done in the last 2 days of the month. Few team complete the re planning rest of the project too and from on 1 of the month complete the iteration task details and planning. For a fortnightly sprints guess a Tuesday/Wednesday planning makes sense.
On one project that we did fortnightly, I fount it better to have a sprint for 10 working days and then 1 day for demo and 1 day for re-planning/buffer. So there is not one start fixed day. it shifts from sprint to sprint. only constant is once started the sprint needs to end in 10 working days. Iteration planning is part of sprint, demo is not.

By: Oana Juncu

Oana Juncu — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:20:42 +0000

Hi,
Start iteration on Tuesday or Wendesday is seemed to work best.
If an iteration starts on Monday, the end of previeous one is “too far behind” ( a week-end in between can change a lot). In the same way, ending iterations on Friday puts too much pression on the team.
We’ve done retrospectives either before or after the review and planning game.
As for myself, The formula I like best is review, reprospective, planning game.
Best.

By: Peter Downey

Peter Downey — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:59:25 +0000

We have two week sprints, ending with demo and retrospective on Tuesday morning, with the next sprint’s planning session on Wednesday morning.
We considered sprint planning in the afternoon of the demo and retrospective, but ruled it out for two reasons;
1 – reserving Tuesday afternoons for non-sprint work (in a nod to ‘google days’) allowed the team to persue non core tasks or pet projects which are personally rewarding and motivating (not to mention usually benefit the project like improvements to our build engine.)
2 – the team is split between North America, and Europe; our European teammates really prefer to not be in the office until 10 PM.

Also for good stretches of the summer months, differing statutory holidays and vacation days used to extend the weekends would invariably mean 1/2 the team was unavailable on either Friday or Monday anyways.

But like the posters to your blog post point out, the big detraction we found for Friday/Mondays were
1 – everyone rushes to get out as soon as possible on Friday
2 – noone really checks in on Mondays until after noon

By: Tina Coleman

Tina Coleman — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:05:52 +0000

Another reason to not end on Friday: too much temptation to slip in that last thing over the weekend, which ends up breaking the build / breaking the system for the demo / etc. Too much scrambling ensued.

By: Richard Moore

Richard Moore — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:53:13 +0000

I usually start the first day we are ready to start planning and that becomes our cycle. Cannot say any day of the week seems to work best. I do like having the review/retro and then into planning the next day so that would eliminate a friday/monday cycle.

By: Jennifer Fawcett

Jennifer Fawcett — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:11:58 +0000

We end our iterations on Wednesday afternoons, do our retros and planning then, and begin work Thursday mornings. Even though our iterations are only one week long, we still do a scrum-of-scrums on Monday afternoons to identify and address any risk.

We were ending on Friday afternoons and starting Mondays, but for some reason, that caused a lot of thrashing getting to the 1:00 Friday demo. Somehow, demoing on Wednesday’s @ 1:00 seems much better. And, attendance is much better mid-week as well.

By: Cristina Vancea

Cristina Vancea — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:51:12 +0000

I also think that starting a sprint on Monday and ending on Friday is not such a good idea. Starting and ending mid-week is best. I also think that doing sprint planning meetings on Fridays could also be an issue since most of the devs tend to leave earlier or be on holiday on Fridays. On the other hand if they want to leave early from work they will be much faster at estimating. .

By: Matthew Lourie

Matthew Lourie — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:43:14 +0000

We do one week iterations as well. When we first got going, we started sprints on a Monday and ended on Friday. What we found is the end of the sprint can be the lowest energy level for the team. If you add a weekend in after that, it takes even more energy to get going again. Now we start on Wednesday, and it seems to work better. We have the momentum of the previous sprint going into the next sprint. Although the weekend breaks up the cycle, it gives team members some thinking time to reflect on the work they are doing.

By: Jerome Pimmel

Jerome Pimmel — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:14:21 +0000

We prefer mid-week: Friday as demo day means invariably that if some urgent pressing thing arises from a demo, it puts pressure on people to work over the weekend.

Second, if you also go live at the end of each iteration, you could end up with some go-live panic, which nobody wants on a Friday night

Lastly, people are more switched on mid-week than dreary Mondays and less distracted than on Fridays where the prospect of a weekend off is on the horizon.

Our weekly demo is Tuesday night, go live is later the same night, Retro and planning on Wednesday morning.

By: Matt Lourie

Matt Lourie — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:04:50 +0000

We do one week iterations. When the project first got going, we started sprints on a Monday and ended on Friday, which seemed like a logical choice. What we found is the end of the sprint can be the lowest energy level for the team. If you tack on the weekend, it takes even more energy to get going again. Now we start on Wednesday, and it seems to work better. We have the momentum of the previous sprint going into the next one. Although the weekend breaks up the sprint, it gives team members some thinking time to reflect on the work they are doing.

By: Stephen Nimmo

Stephen Nimmo — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:17:28 +0000

I prefer to do demos on Friday mornings, retrospectives and sprint planning on Friday afternoons. Get back to work on Monday, fresh and ready.

I think people tend to take iteration length too seriously. The ACTUAL point to structured length iterations is to be able to accurately manage workload and estimates. But as we all know, sprints are rarely cookie cutter. Once you have good estimates (# days * ideal hours per day * team members) simply substitute out X if something jumps in the middle. If your three week sprint has a holiday in the middle, simply subtract out that time of your planned throughput estimate.

By: Kevin Schlabach

Kevin Schlabach — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:43:11 +0000

I prefer mid-week start/ends because it is more important that people are present and engaged during the start/end activities. Mondays/Fridays tend to get clipped by holidays and long weekends more often than other days, and people are catching up on Monday and checking out on Fridays. (I’m talking more about the business voices than the development team).

A successful sprint begin/end is dependent on an energetic and focused product owner or customer. I have found it’s easier to adjust velocity and planning for holiday or resource gaps in the middle of the sprint than move the sprint boundaries.

That being said, Brian’s point about going home for the weekend with a clear plate is something a lot of people prefer. So, I think the team needs to evolve this to match their culture and needs (just like sprint length).

By: Venu Tadepalli

Venu Tadepalli — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:04:12 +0000

I really like the mid-week iteration concept. But in real world we have holidays which change the start and end dates. What is the best practice in dealing with holidays?

By: Steve Donie

Steve Donie — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:49:18 +0000

We currently work in one week iterations that start/end on Tuesdays. We do our weekly demo Tuesday morning, and then iteration planning after that. It has been working really well. We used to do that Monday morning and ran into many of the issues described above – Monday holidays, vacations, playing email catchup, trying to remember what we were working on the previous Friday, etc.

By: Mick Maguire

Mick Maguire — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:13:37 +0000

Duncan, to my mind the big thing is not so much the distraction (though that is an issue ) as the unavailability of folks, I was just chipping in some extra thoughts.

The main downside of a M-F thing type cycle is that if you are going to make mandatory meetings (which Scrum really requires) it kills people’s ability to have vacation on those days. If you don’t make them mandatory then vacation can get in the way and team members can be missing from these crucial meetings. This problem is less severe if you have longer Sprints.

Scrum master keeping the team on the ball…. my experience…. works about 80% – like herding cats

My current teams start and finish the (2 week) Sprints on a Thursday.

By: Brian Bozzuto

Brian Bozzuto — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:43:08 +0000

I have had experience with both situations. From my perspective, I’ve preferred to end on a Friday and go into the weekend with a free mind. However, the feedback from many teams I’ve worked with has not been consistent with that. I have seen two specific situations with iterations not ending at the end of a week.

End on a Thursday, and do planning on Friday. Work would end Thursday EOD and we would do our iteration retrospective Friday morning, put together a plan in the afternoon and then people would have the weekend to think about the work and be ready to start first thing Monday morning. This was also good when some people would come in earlier than others. It also reduced the chance that someone snuck something in at the very last minute before going home for the weekend.

End on a Monday, do planning on Tuesday. I think this model was slightly less effective, but it was done to accommodate a number of interdependent teams and to ensure that the iterations always ended on the same day (Fridays and Mondays were challenges due to holidays). My impression is that this broke up the rhythm just a little too much, but to be fair this was a team very new to Agile and they had other struggles well beyond when they began their iterations.

I can certainly see your points on your blog against putting too much important work on a Monday or Friday. The only counter I would have to that is that many developers I’ve worked with have indicated that retrospectives and planning are a very different type of work and sometimes a nice change of pace on a Friday. I think this is one of those things in which there is no right or wrong answer. In fact, this is the ideal thing to discuss in a retrospective and let the team decide based on their own preferences and work habits.

By: Paul Moffat

Paul Moffat — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:47:16 +0000

Tuesday or Wednesday for me as well. I agree with the above comments but another reason for avoiding a start/finish on a Friday/Monday is that public holidays tend to fall on these days

By: Duncan Campbell

Duncan Campbell — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:11:20 +0000

People are saying that you should avoid Mondays and Fridays because the team is less productive on those days, but that means the team will be doing production work on those less-productive days. If planning an retrospectives are done on Mondays and Fridays then because the Scrum Master is chairing those meetings won’t he be able to keep people on ball?

By: Daniel Wellner

Daniel Wellner — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 07:26:31 +0000

I personally have very good experiences with 2 week sprints, starting on mondays and ending on fridays.

We aim at finishing the sprint at noon on the last friday, after which the team has time to prepare for the demo, but also, to for example optimize tests or even to go home early.
This gives the team a little bit of recovery time before the next sprint starts.
The next monday, we first do the last sprints demo, retrospective and the next sprint planning, which consume most of that day.

This way, in every sprint we have two four-day periods of uninterrupted sprint time, which, I feel, has a positive effect on the team’s velocity.

By: Mike Procek

Mike Procek — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:23:55 +0000

First let me say that I don’t think one size fits all. Obviously teams need to find what works best for them. However, I’m surprised there aren’t more people chiming in about the virtues of Monday and Friday start and end dates. Starting an iteration on a Monday punctuates the beginning of the work week and doing so with commitments helps to get the entire team off to a good start and with a healthy level of urgency. Similarly, closing an iteration out with the promise of having a free weekend without any work hanging over their head is a great motivator. I find that an entire weekend free from work concerns leads to more refreshed teams ready for the next challenge. When you use mid-week start/end dates the team never has a weekend that’s truly their own because there’s always some work in progress to occupy people’s minds.

By: Ed Wong

Ed Wong — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:15:38 +0000

I’ve had success with holding Review and Retrospective on Tuesday morning and then a Planning meeting. A good way to shake off the weekend and get back into it on a Monday is to realise that you have the Sprint Review etc. the next day, we found. I think Wednesdays would work well too but don’t have much empirical evidence yet to back that one up…then if you can’t face doing a Planning meeting that afternoon, you can use Thursday morning for that and avoid frivolous Friday.

By: Gillian Clark

Gillian Clark — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:41:32 +0000

Tuesday or Wed works best for me. Gives the team time to complete one sprint then have enough time to get into next sprint before the week finishes. I generally try to run short sprints (e.g. 2 weeks) and this makes the start/end date even more important

By: Asha Somayajula

Asha Somayajula — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:09:05 +0000

I agree, the mid week iteration start and end works. The reasons stated in your blog seem valid and quite applicable. Although, the end of an iteration on a Friday with a gap of a day between iterations ( with the planning mid-week ) seems to work better.

By: Dave Updike

Dave Updike — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:05:42 +0000

I find that ending an Iteration on Tuesdays or Wednesday’s is best. This at least Monday to get finish off any last items needed for the demo and to prep the demo environment for the next day. A more mature team will need very little time and can push more business value generation into Monday (higher velocity). For a less mature team this makes their weekends happier knowing that they have at least Monday to get their act together for a successful demo.

By: Paul Velonis

Paul Velonis — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:37:57 +0000

I have tried various start/end days over the week across many projects.. I find the best day for starting an iteration is Tuesday. That way you still get the benefit of nearly two full interrupted weeks, as well as the benefit of not finishing on a Friday, for the reasons stated above. In addition, you have to consider the best day/time for the iteration showcase, kick-off and close meetings..