Skip to main content

Looking for recommendations for suggested naming conventions for Sprints that occur between two PI's

Last post 11:02 am November 26, 2023 by hamid ch
4 replies
05:35 pm November 21, 2023

Good morning/afternoon/evening!

  • Backstory: I am a CSM and an RTE for our company. 
  • We deployed SAFe to our decentralized IT/OPS team late 2023. 
  • Today, all of Cambria is Scaled. 
  • We are currently in Sprint 5.4 of PI5. 

Here's the BIG question I am seeking advice for:

  • We will not begin our PI6 Planning Event until 1/12/2024. That said, there are two (2) additional Sprints between the end of PI5 and PI6 start.
  • I am wondering what we should name those two (2) additional Sprints.
    • My consideration is to call the 5.7 and 5.8. 
    • Is there an industry standard in which we should follow in naming those additional Sprint?

Thank you greatly for taking the time to read this and your potential replies!

~ Chris


08:12 pm November 21, 2023

Frankly it doesn't sound as though Scrum has been scaled: rather, it sounds as though organizational problems might have been. In Scrum, a Sprint is a Sprint is a Sprint. That's it. That's how empiricism is established and maintained. Achieve this first, with individual teams, and scale only as a last resort where there are integration dependencies for those teams to self-manage.


08:29 pm November 21, 2023

Wow Ian, I am humbled by your vast knowledge and greatly appreciate your response. You are correct after reading your response, that we are still trying ferociously to Scale and are far from completing that Org wide. That you for reminding me the a Sprint is a Sprint is a Sprint. 

I now know how to proceed.

Thank you kindly for taking the time to respond to me today! I am truly honored! Have a great day sir!


01:54 pm November 22, 2023
  • Is there an industry standard in which we should follow in naming those additional Sprint?

Nope, Scrum is intentionally incomplete, favoring decisions made by self-managing teams. As mentioned there are no special Sprints, such as 'design Sprints', 'hardening Sprints', 'Sprint Zeros', etc. 

The first rule of scaling: Don't do it if you can avoid it. It adds complexity, meeting overhead, and integration challenges to work through. Until your organization gets Scrum working at the team level, perhaps you're just scaling dysfunctions.


11:02 am November 26, 2023

There is no industry standard for naming sprints that occur between two PIs. However, a common practice is to name them using the PI number and a decimal value that increments with each sprint. In this case, the two additional sprints could be named 5.5 and 5.6.


By posting on our forums you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.

Please note that the first and last name from your Scrum.org member profile will be displayed next to any topic or comment you post on the forums. For privacy concerns, we cannot allow you to post email addresses. All user-submitted content on our Forums may be subject to deletion if it is found to be in violation of our Terms of Use. Scrum.org does not endorse user-submitted content or the content of links to any third-party websites.

Terms of Use

Scrum.org may, at its discretion, remove any post that it deems unsuitable for these forums. Unsuitable post content includes, but is not limited to, Scrum.org Professional-level assessment questions and answers, profanity, insults, racism or sexually explicit content. Using our forum as a platform for the marketing and solicitation of products or services is also prohibited. Forum members who post content deemed unsuitable by Scrum.org may have their access revoked at any time, without warning. Scrum.org may, but is not obliged to, monitor submissions.