Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
What Does It Mean?
This one seems obvious, right? Deliver frequently, learn, improve. And yet, I still find myself in conversations about quarterly releases, long stabilization phases, and “big bang” launches. Delivering frequently doesn’t just mean shipping faster—it means building a cadence where feedback can flow back into the product.
Think of it as shortening the distance between building something and learning whether it actually works for the customer. The shorter that loop, the less risk we carry and the more relevant our product becomes.
My Experience
I’ve seen both sides of this coin. On one hand, I’ve coached teams that release every sprint (or even multiple times a sprint) and thrive on the immediate feedback. On the other hand, I’ve also worked in environments where quarterly releases were the “standard.” In those cases, the teams didn’t lack talent or effort—they lacked opportunity.
The backlog filled up with assumptions. Dependencies piled higher with every sprint. By the time the release finally rolled out, some of the features were already outdated, and others didn’t work quite as intended. The team had spent months working in the dark, only to discover the light switch was in the wrong room.
Frequent delivery doesn’t guarantee success, but it does guarantee learning sooner. And learning sooner is almost always cheaper than learning later.
Why This Matters
Cadence matters more than calendar. When teams deliver frequently, they don’t just check a box—they build a rhythm of feedback, improvement, and adaptation.
Contrast that with the “big bang” approach:
- Risk piles up quietly until it explodes at release time.
- Feedback arrives too late to do anything about it.
- Teams end up in crunch mode, patching problems instead of preventing them.
Frequent delivery flips that script. Small, frequent releases reduce risk, increase customer confidence, and create momentum. They also force us to prioritize what’s really valuable instead of endlessly polishing what’s “next.”
Take It to Your Team
In your next retrospective, ask:
- How often do we release working software today?
- What’s the biggest barrier keeping us from releasing more frequently?
- If we had to deliver something every sprint, what would need to change?
Even if you don’t move to every-sprint releases tomorrow, surfacing the barriers is the first step toward breaking them down.
Scrum Bubbles 