A sprint is a fixed, time-boxed period (usually 1 to 4 weeks) during which a development team completes a specific set of work and prepares it for release.
Think of it like a “mini-project” that repeats every few weeks. At the start, the team picks a list of features to build. At the end of the sprint, they have a working, tested, and potentially shippable product increment.
The 5 Key Parts of a Sprint
A sprint isn’t just “coding for two weeks.” It follows a strict rhythm:
-
Sprint Planning (The Kickoff): The team meets to decide exactly what they will build in the upcoming sprint and how they will do it. They pull tasks from a prioritized to-do list called the “Product Backlog.”
-
The Daily Stand-up (The Check-in): Every day for 15 minutes, the team meets to answer three questions: What did I do yesterday? What will I do today? What is blocking me?
-
The Development Work: The team builds, tests, and integrates the features they committed to.
-
Sprint Review (The Demo): At the end of the sprint, the team shows the finished work to stakeholders (product owners, managers, or clients) to get feedback.
-
Sprint Retrospective (The Self-Improvement): The team holds a private meeting to discuss what went well, what went wrong, and how they can improve their process for the next sprint.
A sprint is a human-centric, time-boxed cycle designed for coordination and steady progress. A bolt is an AI-centric, ultra-fast iteration designed to maximize the speed of experimentation by removing human bottlenecks from coding and testing.