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American football teams trailing late in games often rely on a clock-management strategy known as the two-minute drill. They run hurry-up, no-huddle offenses and execute plays that involve running out of bounds (thereby stopping the clock) whenever possible. While working the ball downfield, time can become more formidable than the opposing defense.

Like the scenario above, Scrum involves teams that seek to meet a goal while battling the constraint of time. But instead of scoring touchdowns, the team is creating deliverables, and instead of the two-minute drill it uses a concept called “Time-boxing”.

Time-boxing proposes fixing a certain amount of time for each process and activity in a Scrum project. This ensures that Scrum Team members do not take up too much or too little work for a particular period of time and do not expend their time and energy on work for which they have little clarity. Advantages include an efficient development process, less overhead, and high velocity for teams.

Time-boxing is a critical practice in Scrum and should be applied with care. Arbitrary Time-boxing can lead to de-motivation of the team and may have the consequence of creating an apprehensive environment, so it should be used appropriately. Time-boxing can be used in many Scrum processes. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Sprint: A Sprint is a Time-boxed iteration of one to six weeks during which the Scrum Master guides, facilitates and shields the Scrum Team from both internal and external impediments during the Create Deliverables process. During this time, the team works to convert the requirements in the Prioritized Product Backlog into shippable product functionalities.

Daily Standup Meeting: The Daily Standup Meeting is a short daily meeting, Time-boxed to 15 minutes. The team members get together to report the progress of the project by answering the following three questions:

1.What have I done since the last meeting?

2.What do I plan to do before the next meeting?

3. What impediments or obstacles (if any) am I currently facing?

Sprint Planning Meeting: This meeting is conducted prior to each Sprint as part of the Commit User Stories, Identify Tasks, Estimate Tasks, and Update Sprint Backlog processes. It is Time-boxed to two hours for each week of Sprint duration. For example, for a one-month/four-week Sprint, the Time-box for a Sprint Planning Meeting should be eight hours.

Sprint Review Meeting: The Sprint Review Meeting is Time-boxed to one hour for each week of the Sprint duration. For example, for a four-week Sprint, the Time-box for the Sprint Review Meeting should be four hours. During the Sprint Review Meeting that is conducted in the Demonstrate and Validate Sprint process, the Scrum Team presents the deliverables of the current Sprint to the Product Owner.

The Product Owner reviews the product (or product increment) against the agreed Acceptance Criteria and either accepts or rejects the completed User Stories.

Retrospect Sprint Meeting: The Retrospect Sprint Meeting is Time-boxed to one hour for each week of the Sprint duration. For example, for a four-week Sprint, the Time-box for the Retrospect Sprint Meeting should be four hours. This meeting is conducted as part of the Retrospect Sprint process. During this meeting, the Scrum Team gets together to review and reflect on the current Sprint in terms of the processes followed, tools employed, collaboration and communication mechanisms, and other aspects relevant to the project. The team discusses what went well during the previous Sprint and what did not go well, the goal being to learn and make improvements in the Sprints to follow. Some improvement opportunities or best practices from this meeting could also be updated as part of the Scrum Guidance Body documents.