Holding focused meetings, also known as "sprints," over several days to develop, test, and document software is proving very helpful to the open-source Plone community in quickly adding more functionality to its content management software.There seems to be more out there about Plone sprints, including this interesting piece from Info World:

There have been around 30 Plone sprints since the first such event took place in Berne, Switzerland in February 2003. Tres Seaver, a senior software developer, begun to use sprints in 2002 as a way to speed up the development of Zope 3, an open-source Web application framework that's written in the Python programming language.

The idea is to have small groups of developers, say two to three individuals in each group, working on specific issues over several days. Plone is built using Zope, and so it was natural for the community to also embrace the concept of sprints. Plone sprints aren't limited to coders though, Aune said. Participants with other skills, for instance, writing documentation and software testing, are also welcome.

As the event begins, sprinters tend to naturally gravitate into small groups, and event organizers only have to help that process a little by doing a spot of matchmaking, Aune said. For instance, encouraging people with the same interests, say calendaring, to sit next to each other and start talking.

There's "a huge geek factor" among the sprinters, Rocky Burt said, meaning there can be some social awkwardness, but in his role as Boston sprint leader and provider of technical assistance he makes sure he talks to everyone. The event also kicks off with a group meeting to define goals, and each day ends with a similar get-together where all participants report on what they've been doing.

Sprints vary in how they're run. Some organizers insist upon sprinters clocking in at a particular time each day. The Boston event is less formal with people rolling in whenever they choose. Typically, the day gets underway around 9 a.m. and finishes up around 6 p.m. "It can be hard to make people stop," Aune said. "You sometimes have to coax them out with food." 

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