An iteration, or “sprint,” is a conceptual building block in the core of scrum. At the end of each sprint, the team should have a “possibly shippable product increment” that was built from the items on the product backlog. Scrum is centered around the goal of creating a deliverable increment.
This is conceptually disrupted by the hardening sprint. It is a recurring event that is primarily focused on previously produced content.Scrum is conceptually thrown off by the hardening sprint. It happens on a regular schedule and geared toward previously delivered work items.
Attention is directed away from the incremental deliverability to testing activities, such as integration, system, and regression testing. The team will conduct testing during the hardening sprint and will fix any issues that arise. There is no way to sneakily keep working on new features and stories during a hardening sprint.
Can we steer clear from harding sprints
Hardening Sprints are specialty sprints devoted to stabilizing the code base so that it is robust enough for release.
Improving engineering practices can obviate the need for a Hardening Sprint, which is why their use is discouraged. If hardening is required, it should be done incrementally utilizing Cleanup Stories inside Sprints rather than taking up an entire Sprint.