<i>The problem is that Scrum &quot;sprints&quot; are like treating a marathon as 422 contiguous 100m dashes.</i><p>Yep.  Or to put it another way, too many shops seem to think that you can &quot;sprint&quot; ALL THE TIME.  And while it&#x27;s &quot;only a metaphor&quot;, it&#x27;s a meaningful one in this case.  You can&#x27;t:<p><pre><code>    sprint -&gt; sprint -&gt; sprint -&gt; sprint -&gt; sprint -&gt; sprint -&gt; ∞
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You have to:<p><pre><code>    sprint -&gt; sprint -&gt; breather -&gt; sprint -&gt; breather -&gt; sprint -&gt; sprint -&gt; breather -&gt; ∞
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or something like that.