Why are sprints needed in SCRUM? How to set a sprint goal?

Question

Agile

Good afternoon,
I'm trying to study and implement an agile methodology in our company, and then we had a small argument.
A colleague agrees with all the roles and artifacts of scrum, but expressed his dissatisfaction with the sprint, they say, why is it needed? You can hold all the same meetings according to the schedule without any sprints, and take tasks according to the kanban methodology - just take them from the product backlog and do it in turn, without setting a framework in the form of a sprint. After all, if a person does not have time to do something at the end of the sprint, he starts to rush, he can test badly, etc.
I could not give a reasoned answer against it :) so I ask you for advice / help.
To all this I can’t figure it out - how to set a sprint goal? We are working on our website, the traffic is about 500k per day and the tasks are completely different and it is simply impossible to group them according to some purpose.
Thank you!

Answer 1

Who needs?
Project managers need sprints for predictability and planning - to know how many features a team can write down in a certain period of time.
The team - firstly, to protect the backlog (in this sprint, she focuses on features A and B and is not distracted by anything else), and secondly, to improve her own results. With sprints, you can say “we used to do 12 storypoints per sprint, and now we do 15, we are great” (I, of course, simplify), without sprints, the team loses metrics and, accordingly, the ability to debug processes. Plus, it is much more difficult to introduce reflection into the life of a team without sprints.
If you can’t set one big goal for the sprint, set several small and independent ones, which is the problem.

Answer 2

The tasks are completely different and it is simply impossible to group them according to some goal.

It means that the tasks were chosen incorrectly. Apparently you go from bottom to top - first you select tasks, and then you try to form a goal from them. On the contrary, you need to define one global business goal, and then select the tasks that will allow you to achieve it.
Scrum is a methodology for delivering business value, not just iterative development.
Those. Product management should also follow Scrum. If you have it unordered, then the situation is the same as yours.

Answer 3

The whole essence of Scrum is in a fast release cycle. If programmers did not manage to roll out new functionality during the sprint, then they either work too slowly or do not know how to split the task into sufficiently small parts. And the second, in turn, is a sign that the project already has architectural problems.

Answer 4

To put it simply, sprint is needed to maintain the rhythm of work.
And there can be no unique goal for each sprint - it always has one goal: to complete what the team planned to do for this sprint and not be distracted by anything else. It is more correct to say that at the beginning of the sprint, tasks are prioritized and planned, each of which has its own goals.
Priorities for tasks are set by the product owner, and the team only determines what it will have time to do from the prioritized, knowing its resources / capabilities and evaluating the volume of tasks.
The task of the Scrum Master with all this is to try to make sure that nothing interferes with the team to complete the planned tasks throughout the entire sprint.
And don't forget that the sprint ends with two important events:
1. Review (or demo-day), when the team demonstrates to the product owner the completed tasks and implemented functionality of the product
2. Retrospective, in which each team member speaks on three points:
- What we did well
- What should be improved / strengthened
- What is worth do not do
A retrospective is very important for optimizing the work of the entire team and getting feedback from each other. And after it, the team creates one or more tasks to optimize their work, which also get on a common kanban board and are implemented in the next sprint.
Without these scrum events, iteration (i.e. sprint), in my opinion, does not make sense. And then your colleague, of course, will be right - he will move the cards on the kanban board and say "something these scrums of yours do not work" © =)