Does anyone else get worn out using Scrum, finishing sprint after sprint?
- by Simucal
I'm with a pretty small startup and we started using a form of a Scrum/Agile development cycle.
In many ways I enjoy Scrum. We have relatively short sprints (2 weeks) and I like the Burndown Chart to track the teams progress. I also like the Feature Board so I always know what I should be doing next. It feels good taking down a feature's card from the board, completing it and then putting it in the burn down pile.
However, we are now entering in our 18th Sprint release cycle and I'm starting to feel a little burnt out. It isn't that I don't like job or my co-workers, it is just that these sprints are... well, sprints. From start to finish I literally feel like I'm racing against the clock to maintain our development velocity. When we are done with the sprint we spend one day planning the next sprints feature set and estimates and then off we go again.
For people who work in a mature Agile/Scrum development process, is this normal? Or are we missing something? Is there normally time in a Scrum enviornment that is unassigned/untracked to get done some minor things and to clear your head?