Running Scrum Sprints From Mid-week to Mid-week

Figure 3 deliberately shows an iteration running mid-week to mid-week. My experience, and the experience of others assisting teams, is that running iterations mid-week to mid-week is more effective than running them Monday to Friday. Why this should be so is difficult to pin down, but there are several reasons that I believe contribute: The ‘Friday afternoon effect’. If an iteration resets on a Monday, then anyone completing a piece of work on Friday will not be particularly motivated to start another piece of work. In many environments it is common to finish early on Friday, or take a long lunch. If the iteration has several more days to run, there is less incentive to ‘slack off’ on a Friday afternoon. Monday refresh. I believe there is research showing that people are more effective at the start of a new week. I hasten to add I have not read this research myself, which is a little lax of me. Anecdotally many people, if asked, say their most productive day is Tuesday. Assuming there is truth in these tales, it is a good reason to avoid meetings on Monday and Tuesday. Public holidays. In the UK and many other countries many public holidays occur on Mondays. This means that there is more chance of an iteration meeting being disrupted if it is scheduled on a Monday. Personal holidays. Again in the UK and many other countries individuals are more likely to take a Friday or Monday off as a long weekend. [...]