What are Agile Ceremonies? (Scrum Ceremonies)

Agile ceremonies are different practices carried out by teams that are implementing Agile. These include Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-up, Iteration Review and Retrospective but may not be limited to.

What is Sprint Planning?

An agile ceremony held between the Development team, Scrum Master, and Product Owner. It is held at the beginning of a new sprint, with the purpose of setting up the entire team for success throughout the sprint. The Product Owner will discuss a prioritized backlog with the development team, and the whole group collectively comes up with the amount of effort involved. The team then decides how much of the work from the backlog can be completed.

What is Daily Stand-up?

An agile ceremony held between the Development Team, Scrum Master and Product Owner. Stakeholders may also be invited to this meeting. This meeting takes place every day, typically in the morning. The purpose of the Stand-up is to keep everyone in the team on the same page. Each team member is asked for their current status, and is required to answer questions like: What did I do yesterday? What will I do today? And Is anything blocking my work?

The daily stand-up should be considered an informal meeting and should be no longer than 15 minutes.

What is Iteration Review?

An agile ceremony held between Development Team, Scrum Master and Product Owner, where the Stakeholders may be invited as well. The purpose of the Iteration review is to showcase the work that the team has been achieving in past sprints. The format of the meetings can be casual or formal depending on the team’s preferences. After giving demos of their progress, the team can expect to receive feedback from the stakeholders.

What is Retrospective?

An agile ceremony held between the Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Development Team. The aim of the meeting is to find out what worked well and what didn’t. It is a look back into the past to see how the team performed and what factors caused it to lose productivity. With this type of retrospective analysis, the team can expect to improve its processes and be on the path of growth for the future.