Sprint Calendar — S1 through S26¶

Two-week sprints are the operational unit of this campaign. Each one has a start date, an end date, a primary phase, a specific deliverable, an honest learning load (in hours), and a lab-notebook expectation. The calendar below is a contract with yourself — the moment you start negotiating with it, the plan starts eroding.

Four of the 26 sprints are buffer sprints (one per quarter). They exist to absorb slippage, weddings, festivals, heat, and life. If a quarter runs clean, the buffer becomes a teaching sprint — write, publish, teach. Do not use it to start a new project.

The convention:

Learning load is personal-time hours (evenings + weekends), not including your Zoho day job.
Lab-notebook expectation is the minimum entries. S-plan = 1 planning entry at start. S-retro = 1 retro entry at end. Predict/Measure = at least one predict-then-measure entry inside the sprint (from ../13_discipline/02_lab_notebook.md).

The Sprint Table¶

Sprint	Weeks / Dates	Phase	Deliverable	Load (hrs)	Lab-notebook
S1	Jul 6 – Jul 19, 2026	01 Fundamentals	Env locked; programs 1–12 committed	24–30	S-plan, S-retro
S2	Jul 20 – Aug 2, 2026	01 Fundamentals	Programs 13–25; collections notes	24–30	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
S3	Aug 3 – Aug 16, 2026	01 Fundamentals → 02 DSA	Programs 26–40; Phase 01 exit check	24–30	S-plan, S-retro
S4	Aug 17 – Aug 30, 2026	02 DSA	Rung 1 shipped (50 programs repo + Hashnode post)	24–30	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
S5	Aug 31 – Sep 13, 2026	02 DSA	30 DSA solutions (arrays, strings) + `MiniArrayList` skeleton	24–30	S-plan, S-retro
S6	Sep 14 – Sep 27, 2026	02 DSA	30 more solutions; `MiniArrayList` complete; JMH benchmark #1	24–30	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
S7	Sep 28 – Oct 11, 2026	02 DSA	Trees + graphs solutions (25–30); `MiniHashMap` skeleton	24–30	S-plan, S-retro
S8	Oct 12 – Oct 25, 2026	02 DSA	Rung 2 shipped (150 DSA solutions, pattern-tagged)	24–30	S-plan, S-retro
—	Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2026	Q1 Buffer Week	Catch-up OR: write a Rung 2 blog + Phase 02 recap post	5–10	Q1 review entry
S9	Nov 2 – Nov 15, 2026	03 OOP/Modern Java	Phase 03 files 01–02 read; refactor-catalog repo scaffolded	20–26	S-plan, S-retro
S10	Nov 16 – Nov 29, 2026	03 OOP/Modern Java	Phase 03 files 03–04 read; smelly ORDER PROCESSOR refactor v1	18–24	S-plan, S-retro
S11	Nov 30 – Dec 13, 2026	03 OOP/Modern Java	Refactor v2 + before/after diff; blog outline	20–26	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
S12	Dec 14 – Dec 27, 2026	03 → 04 Streams/Functional	Rung 4 shipped (repo + Hashnode blog)	20–26	S-plan, S-retro
S13	Dec 28 – Jan 10, 2027	04 Streams/Functional	Phase 04 files 01–02 read; `MiniLinkedList` shipped	20–26	S-plan, S-retro
S14	Jan 11 – Jan 24, 2027	04 Streams/Functional	Phase 04 files 03–05 read; `log-analyzer` v1	20–26	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
—	Jan 25 – Jan 31, 2027	Q2 Buffer Week	Absorb wedding-season slippage; preload Phase 05	5–10	Q2 review + halfway retro (Hashnode post)
S15	Feb 1 – Feb 14, 2027	05 Concurrency	Phase 05 files 01–03 read; rate limiter v1	26–32	S-plan, S-retro
S16	Feb 15 – Feb 28, 2027	05 Concurrency	🚨 Rung 5 HARD GATE shipped (rate limiter + virtual threads)	26–32	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
S17	Mar 1 – Mar 14, 2027	06 JVM/Performance	Phase 06 files 01–03 read; Async Profiler flame graphs of Rung 5	24–30	S-plan, S-retro
S18	Mar 15 – Mar 28, 2027	06 JVM/Performance	Rung 6 shipped (JVM case study with ≥1 reverted optimization)	24–30	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
S19	Mar 29 – Apr 11, 2027	07 Enterprise/Spring	Phase 07 files 01–02 read; URL Shortener scaffolded	22–28	S-plan, S-retro
S20	Apr 12 – Apr 25, 2027	07 Enterprise/Spring	Phase 07 files 03–04 read; JPA + Testcontainers wired	22–28	S-plan, S-retro
—	Apr 26 – May 2, 2027	Q3 Buffer Week	Absorb Chennai-heat energy loss; prep Rung 7	5–10	Q3 review entry
S21	May 3 – May 16, 2027	07 Enterprise/Spring	Phase 07 files 05–07 read; Rung 7 auth + observability	22–28	S-plan, S-retro
S22	May 17 – May 30, 2027	07 → 08 Distributed/ML	Rung 7 shipped (URL Shortener production-ready)	22–28	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
S23	May 31 – Jun 13, 2027	08 Distributed/ML	Phase 08 files 01–03 read; ONNX Runtime Java hello-world	22–28	S-plan, S-retro
S24	Jun 14 – Jun 27, 2027	08 Distributed/ML	Phase 08 files 04–05 read; Rung 8 v1 (model serving endpoint)	22–28	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
S25	Jun 28 – Jul 11, 2027	08 Distributed/ML	Phase 08 files 06–07 read; Rung 8 on Kubernetes (k3d/minikube)	22–28	S-plan, S-retro
S26	Jul 12 – Jul 25, 2027	08 Distributed/ML	🚨 Rung 8 HARD GATE shipped (ML capstone on K8s)	26–32	S-plan, S-retro, Predict/Measure
—	Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2027	Q4 Buffer Week	Rest. Portfolio landing page live. Final Hashnode retro post.	5–10	Final review entry + M13 pitch rehearsals

Total: 26 sprints (of which 22 execute, 4 buffer). Roughly 560–720 personal-time hours across 13 months.

Sprint Load Budget¶

The load column is honest, not optimistic. Notice:

S9–S14 dip to 18–26 hrs — this covers the wedding-season months (Nov 2026 – Feb 2027, M5–M7). You will lose weekends. Plan for it.
S15–S16 climb to 26–32 hrs — the hard-gate sprint. If you cannot get to 26 real hours in these two sprints, use Q2 buffer week preemptively to preload Phase 05 reading in January.
S26 climbs to 26–32 hrs — capstone finish. Same principle: use Q3 or Q4 buffer proactively if June looks light.

If you consistently miss 20-hour weeks, you are not lazy — the plan is oversized for your current life, and you should compress rungs (drop MiniLinkedList, drop the stretch goals) rather than skip the sprint retros.

Slippage Log Template¶

Copy this into ../13_discipline/02_lab_notebook.md or a dedicated SLIPPAGE.md in your notes repo. Fill it out the day the slippage happens, not later.

### Slippage Log Entry

- **Sprint:** S__
- **Date logged:** YYYY-MM-DD
- **Planned deliverable:** ___
- **Actual state:** ___ (% done)
- **Root cause (one of):** work / family / health / scope-underestimate / motivation / other: ___
- **Buffer week available this quarter?** yes / no / already spent
- **Decision (choose one):**
    - [ ] Absorb into buffer week (write plan for buffer week here)
    - [ ] Cut scope (specify what drops)
    - [ ] Slide deliverable one sprint (specify what shifts)
    - [ ] Pause plan for 1 week (see 99_pre_mortem/08_fm_life_and_health.md)
- **Next-sprint impact:** ___
- **Learned:** ___

Two rules for the slippage log:

You are allowed to slip. You are not allowed to be quiet about it. A logged slip is data. An unlogged slip is a lie you’re telling yourself, and it will compound.
If you log 3 slips in a row without using a buffer week, stop and go read ../99_pre_mortem/09_summary_and_reset_protocol.md. That is the reset trigger.

What Not To Do With This Calendar¶

Do not front-load. The temptation in M1 is to blow through Phase 01 in three weeks and be “ahead.” What happens next: burnout by M4, plan feels stale by M6, quit by M8. The sprints are two weeks for a reason — the reason is your body and your job.
Do not skip retros. The S-retro is the smallest ritual with the largest compound return. Even 10 minutes at the end of a sprint writing “what shipped, what didn’t, what I learned” is worth more than the last hour of coding.
Do not renegotiate deliverables mid-sprint. If a sprint deliverable is wrong, note it in the retro and adjust the next sprint. Mid-sprint negotiation is how scope creep enters the plan — see ../99_pre_mortem/07_fm_scope_creep_and_shiny_objects.md.

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