Everyone hates confusion. Especially, when two topics are well-connected and hard to differentiate from each other. And, if it is agile, it worsens the case rather than simplifying it. Since agile has many frameworks and processes, it poses a challenge for the entrants. In agile, sprint and release are some of the most challenging concepts to understand. Sometimes they look similar; sometimes they contradict. However, in the battle of sprint vs release, scrum guide can help you but that will take serious time. If you want to understand how these two concepts are different from each other, then keep reading this post.But, first of all, know…..
To address confusion, first, we should look out for the similarities between two concepts so that we can have a deep analysis. Sprint and release both are part of the software development life cycle. They have similarities, but both have different goals. The sprint is a cyclical process while release has a start-to-end journey. During the sprint, a software development team makes changes in the build, fixes bugs, review the changes, etc. In simple terms, it brings the project into the releasable form.
After a release, the customer uses the software and the team handles the maintenance. Sprint, on the other hand, takes care of the smaller goal. In a sprint, instead of focusing on a project as a whole, the scrum team divides the project into parts and then finishes each part separately.
However, it also includes a release but it’s a partial release, which is known as sprint review. An actual release focuses on releasing software to the production phase or making it live. Thus, rather than calling sprint a release, you should address it as a milestone. When the scrum team completes all the sprints, the software enters the production release phase. In simple words, sprints are the shorter release cycles in agile. To understand more about the sprint you should know about the role of the sprint backlog.
When a product owner comes up with a fresh concept, the idea contains several product backlogs or user stories. But the scrum team decides which product backlogs will be given priority so that the team can complete the project in a specific time frame. The team aims at productivity and quality. Since, working on multiple product backlogs at a single time can prove to be a disaster, thus the scrum team picks certain backlogs from the group of product backlogs for each sprint. Hence, relevant backlogs picked for a sprint are known as sprint backlog. The same approach is maintained for other sprints as well.
However, sprint backlogs have nothing to do with the release but during the release planning some agile metrics create the same row as sprint and release do. Hence, here we can’t overlook the agile metrics to understand the difference between sprint and release. So, let’s understand...
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Release planning tools consist of several agile metrics in the software development cycle. These metrics help software development teams to track the quality of the teams and the software even before the release. They help scrum master monitor teams’ performance, confidence, and determination. The goal of these metrics is to ensure a successful release meeting. Here is a list of useful agile metrics:
Agile Quality Metrics:
During the software building stage you need something to believe that the end-user will love it. The agile quality metrics do the same and help the scrum master to access the quality of the software under the building process and predict whether the customer will be satisfied.
Escaped Defects
No software team would want a release to be entered in a production stage without fixing its bugs. When a software development team includes this metric, they know whether the software will be error-free or not. If the release is found bug free then the software can be sent for production.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
This metric predicts whether the user will recommend the software or not. This is similar to the agile quality metric and performed right before the release. The main aim of the NPS is to assess the reaction of the users for a particular release.
Since we are interested in digging Sprint vs release, you can’t miss out on the two important agile metrics: Sprint burndown and epic & release burndown. However, they don’t play a crucial role in release, still software development teams can’t neglect them as they focus on team productivity.
So, let’s look at sprint burndown vs release burndown
Sprint Burndown
Before planning a sprint, the scrum team discusses the work they can complete in a definite period. The sprint burndown report helps the team to visualize the amount of work that can be completed in a sprint. After seeing the graph team can ensure that the work can be completed in the required time. This is also a good tool to access the team’s productivity in real-time.
Epic & Release Burndown
Like sprint burndown it also produces results in the form of graphs but it’s way more comprehensive than sprint burndown. It can predict teams’ productivity even if the new features added to the finalized project. Suppose a product owner comes with a special requirement to add massive or minute features in the application, the team would not lose productivity because they have already applied release burndown metric.
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It’s easy to delve into uncertainty, but a small effort towards learning a new concept can end all your doubts. We all know that agile methodologies make project management easier for the software development teams but having a hazy perspective about the processes can mislead the entire team. Like most of the beginners, anyone can lose its track while understanding the difference between sprint and release. In that case, always remember that sprint focus on smaller and repetitive goals while a release is the last phase of the software development life cycle and has a higher aim.
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