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Agile Sprint Breakdown and Phases

Phase 1: Documentation & MVP Development (Sprints 0–2)​

Primary Goal: Establish a shared understanding of the problem domain and deliver a documented, testable MVP.

Sprint 0 — Project Framing & Setup​

  • Stakeholder onboarding
  • Team norms and working agreements
  • Problem domain exploration
  • Event storming
  • Team formation and tooling setup

Sprint 1 — Requirements & Design​

  • Requirements gathering and validation
  • Initial system design (UML, architecture)
  • Formal project documentation (requirements, architecture, rationale)
  • MVP planning
When to Start Development

While early sprints focus on documentation, teams are encouraged to begin prototyping and experimenting with technologies as soon as possible to inform design decisions.

Sprint 2 — MVP Implementation​

  • MVP development
  • Early testing and validation
  • Stakeholder feedback
  • Documentation refinement

📌 By the end of Sprint 2, teams should have a documented system and a working MVP.

Phase 2: Development, Refinement & Delivery​

In the current syllabus format, this phase spans Sprints 3–5.

Primary Goal: Iteratively build, refine, and harden the system based on stakeholder feedback.

Sprints 3–4 — Core Feature Development​

This phase focuses on turning your MVP into a robust system through iterative development and stakeholder feedback.

  • Major feature implementation
  • API development
  • Integration work
  • Regular stakeholder demos

Refinement & Delivery​

In the current syllabus format, this stage is centered on Sprint 5.

  • Testing and validation
  • Performance and usability improvements
  • Final documentation
  • Presentation and delivery preparation

📌 By the end of the final sprint, teams should have a polished, deployable system with complete documentation.

Sprint Timing by Term Format​

The current syllabus format is Summer Semester. For the full week-by-week timing overview, see the Course Schedule page. This page focuses on what happens within each sprint and when milestone demos occur.

important

Milestone Demos & Deliverables​

Milestone demos occur at the end of Sprints 2, 3, and 4 to showcase progress to stakeholders and gather feedback.

Teams should plan deliverables accordingly to ensure readiness for these demos.

SprintMilestone Deliverable
End of Sprint 2Milestone Demo 1
End of Sprint 3Milestone Demo 2
End of Sprint 4Milestone Demo 3
End of Sprint 5Final Demo & Delivery

Milestone demos are graded checkpoints and are required for continued project progress.