Two week sprint of the Tillsby team, a fictional farm records app
Sprint cycle slide with the length of every ceremony
A sprint cycle slide shows the loop a team repeats every sprint, planning, building, reviewing and reflecting, and how long each part takes. This one shows how the team behind Tillsby, a fictional farm records app, runs a ten working day sprint that ends with a working increment every time.
What is on the slide
- Title and framing line
- Two Week Sprint. How the Tillsby farm records team runs every ten working days, with the time each step takes.
- Planning and build
- Planning, 2 hours: day 1 morning, one sprint goal, 30 to 34 points pulled. Build, 9 days: build, test and ship, 15 minute stand up at 9:15.
- Review and retro
- Review, 1 hour: day 10 demo to two farmers and the product owner. Retro, 45 minutes: keep one practice, drop one, try one new thing.
- Hub
- Working Increment, shipped every 10 days.
When this is the right slide
Pick this slide when people outside a product team need to see the repeating sprint loop, how long each ceremony takes and what the team ships at the end of every cycle.
What to swap it for
Grouping: Centered 4-Node Cycle. Use the centred four node cycle for a general improvement loop such as plan, do, study, act, where each node needs a description and there is no legend.
What this slide shows
The title reads Two Week Sprint, with a framing line saying how the Tillsby farm records team runs every ten working days, with the time each step takes. A legend on the left lists four numbered stages, each with an icon, a label and one sentence. 01 PLANNING, 2 HOURS: day 1 morning, agree one sprint goal and pull 30 to 34 points from the backlog. 02 BUILD, 9 DAYS: build, test and ship, with a 15 minute stand up at 9:15 every morning. 03 REVIEW, 1 HOUR: day 10, demo the working increment to two farmers and the product owner. 04 RETRO, 45 MINUTES: day 10 afternoon, keep one practice, drop one, try one new thing next sprint. On the right, four coloured wedges numbered 01 to 04 form a pinwheel around a white hub reading Working Increment, Shipped every 10 days, with a refresh icon. The wedges carry only the numbers, so the legend holds the words and the wheel shows the rhythm of the loop.
When this is the right slide
Use a sprint cycle slide when a team needs to explain how it works to people outside it: a new manager, a client, a stakeholder group or new starters. It answers how often things ship, when people can see progress and how much time goes to meetings. It is the wrong slide for showing what is in the current sprint, which a kanban board slide does, and the wrong slide for a one way process with a start and an end, which a milestone or stepped process slide shows better. For a general improvement loop such as plan, do, study, act, a centred four node cycle with a named hub and descriptions on each node is the simpler choice. The slide also helps when a team changes its rhythm, for example moving from three week to two week sprints, because it shows the new durations side by side in a single picture. Stakeholders who used to see a demo once a month can see at a glance that they will now see one every ten working days, which sets expectations for the next quarter.
How to adapt it
First, add the calendar slot to each stage, such as Monday 9:30 for planning, when the slide is for new starters who need to book the meetings. Second, swap the hub text for the sprint goal, for example Paddock maps offline, when the slide opens a sprint review rather than explaining the process. Third, make a version for a longer cycle, such as a three week sprint, and update every duration so build reads 14 days; do not leave old numbers on a new cycle. If the team adds a refinement session, fold it into build in the description rather than adding a fifth wedge, because this layout holds exactly four stages.
What makes this slide work
Durations sit in the stage names
PLANNING, 2 HOURS. BUILD, 9 DAYS. REVIEW, 1 HOUR. RETRO, 45 MINUTES. Putting the time in the label means the most important fact for a manager is read first, and it makes the point that meetings take under four hours of a ten day sprint.
The hub names the outcome
The centre of the pinwheel says Working Increment, shipped every 10 days. Every wedge points at it, so the slide reads as a loop with a purpose rather than four meetings in a circle.
Each stage has one concrete detail
Planning pulls 30 to 34 points, build has a stand up at 9:15, review demos to two farmers and the product owner, and retro keeps one practice, drops one and tries one. The details are specific to Tillsby, which makes the slide useful as a team agreement.
Questions people ask
Why show ceremony durations on a sprint slide?
Because time is what people outside the team worry about. A manager seeing planning, review and retro without durations may assume half the sprint is meetings. Showing 2 hours, 1 hour and 45 minutes beside 9 days of build makes the balance plain and answers that worry before it is raised.
Should the daily stand up be its own stage on the slide?
Usually not on a four stage loop. The stand up happens inside the build stage every day, so it reads best as part of that stage, here a 15 minute stand up at 9:15. Giving it its own wedge suggests it is a separate phase that happens once per sprint, which it is not.
What goes in the centre of a sprint cycle?
The outcome the loop produces. Here it is Working Increment, shipped every 10 days. Putting the outcome in the hub reminds the audience that the ceremonies exist to deliver something usable each sprint, not for their own sake. A velocity number can go in the centre for an internal team slide.
How long should a sprint be?
The Scrum Guide sets a sprint at one month or less, and many product teams use two weeks, as this slide does. Shorter sprints give faster feedback; longer ones suit work that needs more time to show results. Whatever the length, keep it fixed so the durations on the slide stay true.
Does a sprint cycle slide suit non software teams?
Yes, if the team works in fixed, repeating cycles. A marketing team planning two week campaigns or an operations team running fortnightly improvement cycles can use the same four stages with their own durations. Rename the stage labels to fit the work, but keep the outcome in the centre.
How do I present a sprint cycle slide to new team members?
Go round the loop once in order, then come back to the stage they will notice first, usually the daily stand up inside build. Tell them when each ceremony happens on the calendar. A quick example, such as last sprint's review with two farmers, makes the cycle concrete.
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