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I like the idea of every 5th sprint being devoted to this – a day week is barely enough to just switch context and get into gear. I can see how getting a couple of days distance between "real" work and the 5th sprint would be beneficial just to clear your mind and start fresh, knowing there are two glorious weeks of focus ahead.

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Everyone is different. Some people stagnate without switching contexts frequently enough. That happens to me sometimes.

I worked at a large company which in its quest to deploy agile everywhere introduced an innovation sprint. The actual concept went well, and we even had some great show-and-tell sessions from it, but absolutely zero things created during those sprints were allowed to ship. So in the end it was more of a blow-off valve for engineers before sending them back to another 10 weeks of normal engineering drudgery, while their innovative projects collected dust on a manager's shelf somewhere. If these were research spikes I feel like they would have gotten a little more respect from the higher-ups.

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