Sprint zero

Sprint zero is a short sprint that happens during the planning phase.

The development team can sometimes begin working without any significant input during the planning phase. While the management and stakeholders discuss planning matters, the tech team can set up technical boilerplate. This can be thought of as the "sprint zero", or the sprint before the sprints.

However, it's important that they don't over-extend the work here with assumptions that aren't decided on yet. If they start working on features that aren't scheduled for the next sprints, they may end up with wasted effort.

Example

An example of a sprint zero may look like this:

• Set up the code repositories (eg, GitHub) and automated testing.
• Start with a new project template (eg, rails new).
• Implement basic features like user signup.
• Spin up a staging server (eg, Heroku).
• Set up the project tracker (eg, Trello).
• Set up Slack with the needed channels and integrations.
• Set up any other needed resources.

Next: Name sprints and releases with version numbers.