What are the four main Scrum ceremonies?

Sprint Planning starts the sprint by setting a goal and selecting work. The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute daily sync. The Sprint Review inspects the increment with stakeholders. The Sprint Retrospective reflects on how to improve. Backlog refinement is ongoing rather than a fixed event.

How long should each ceremony last?

The Scrum Guide gives maximums for a one-month sprint: Sprint Planning up to 8 hours, Sprint Review up to 4, Retrospective up to 3, and the Daily Scrum fixed at 15 minutes. Shorter sprints get proportionally shorter events, except the Daily Scrum which stays at 15 minutes.

Why does the Daily Scrum stay 15 minutes for any sprint length?

The Daily Scrum is a daily cadence tied to a single day of work, not to the sprint length. Whether your sprint is one week or four, the team still meets once a day for at most 15 minutes to inspect progress and re-plan the day.

Is backlog refinement a ceremony?

Not formally. Refinement is an ongoing activity in which the Product Owner and Developers add detail, estimates and order to backlog items so they are ready for future sprints. Teams typically spend around 10% of their capacity on it across the sprint.

Does this tool send my sprint settings anywhere?

No. The timeboxes are scaled entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, logged or stored.

What is the Agile Ceremony Reference?

Reference for the Scrum ceremonies — sprint planning, daily standup, review and retrospective — with Scrum Guide timeboxes, participants and purpose, plus a live timebox scaler for your sprint length. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Agile Ceremony Reference

Name: Agile Ceremony Reference
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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The rhythm of a Scrum sprint

Scrum runs on a fixed set of events that create transparency and regular chances to inspect and adapt. This reference lays out each ceremony — its cadence, who attends, its purpose and its timebox — and scales the recommended lengths to the sprint length you actually run.

The five Scrum events at a glance

Sprint Planning

Opens each sprint. The whole Scrum Team attends — Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers. The team answers three questions: why does this sprint matter, what can we do, and how will we do it? The output is a Sprint Goal and a Sprint Backlog of selected work. For a one-month sprint the Scrum Guide allows up to 8 hours; a two-week sprint caps at roughly 4 hours.

Daily Scrum

A 15-minute inspection held by Developers every working day, fixed regardless of sprint length. Its purpose is to replan the day’s work toward the Sprint Goal. Managers and other stakeholders typically do not attend — it is a working meeting for the people doing the work, not a status report. The Scrum Master does not run it; they coach the team to run it themselves.

Sprint Review

Held at the end of the sprint with stakeholders present. The team inspects the increment and adapts the Product Backlog in response to what they learn. It is a working session, not a demo showcase — the Scrum Guide specifically notes it is not an approval gate. Timebox: up to 4 hours for a one-month sprint.

Sprint Retrospective

The team’s chance to inspect how they worked and plan one or two meaningful improvements to carry into the next sprint. It is held after the Review so that any stakeholder feedback from the Review can inform the retrospective agenda. Timebox: up to 3 hours for a one-month sprint.

Not a formal Scrum event, but an ongoing activity that occupies roughly 10% of Developers’ capacity per sprint. The team adds detail, estimates, and ordering to upcoming backlog items so future sprints have ready work to pull from.

Scaled timeboxes for common sprint lengths

Event	1-week sprint	2-week sprint	4-week sprint
Sprint Planning	~2 hours	~4 hours	8 hours max
Daily Scrum	15 min (fixed)	15 min (fixed)	15 min (fixed)
Sprint Review	~1 hour	~2 hours	4 hours max
Retrospective	~45 min	~1.5 hours	3 hours max

The Daily Scrum is the only event that does not scale with sprint length — it is tied to a single day of work, not the sprint duration.

Tips and notes

Timeboxes are maximums, not targets — protect focus by ending early when the goal is met.
Keep the Daily Scrum to the Developers and tied to the Sprint Goal; it is a re-planning event, not a status report to managers.
Hold the Retrospective after the Review so feedback from stakeholders can feed improvement actions.
Budget refinement continuously rather than as one big meeting, so the next sprint’s items are always ready.
The Sprint Goal is the commitment for the Sprint — without a clear goal, planning becomes a disconnected list of tasks with no shared purpose.