What is a time-box in Scrum?

A time-box in Scrum refers to a fixed duration for an event that must end regardless of the outcome. This is a fundamental concept in Scrum, which ensures that meetings and other activities do not extend indefinitely, thus fostering efficiency and focus. Each time-boxed event is carefully planned to take a specific amount of time, creating a sense of urgency and encouraging teams to stay on track with their goals.

By adhering to a strict timeframe, Scrum promotes discipline and helps teams manage their work more effectively. For example, Scrum events such as Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospectives all have predefined time frames that the team agrees upon to ensure progress and reflections happen systematically. This discipline prevents discussions from dragging on and allows teams to maintain momentum throughout their workflow.

In contrast, the other options suggest varying degrees of flexibility or recommendations, which do not align with the core principle of time-boxing in the Scrum framework. Scrum's framework is built on fixed-duration events to maintain structure and consistency, making this understanding essential for effective Scrum practice.