1
What’s the value of Sprint Review Meetings?
Scrum Sprint Review
I’ve been reading about Sprint Review Meetings (or demos) over the past few weeks. We used to have Sprint Reviews but we stopped as they were very boring and so we after a few demos we had trouble getting the key stakeholders in the room thereafter. The main complaint was that the demos took too much time from the team to prepare. I can’t help thinking that without the demos at the end of the sprint the team are not as focused as they used to be. We’re not making our commitments as often as we were, and a little of the sense of urgency I used to see at the end of the sprint is no longer present.
I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem and how they solved it.
Sprint review meetings are vital to any successful implementation of Scrum. There are several reasons for this:
• If you have a Sprint Review scheduled the team will feel a bit of pressure towards the end of the sprint and strive to get their stories completed. No team wants to admit they haven’t met their sprint commitments in front of senior executives.
• Ensures the team stays focused on the sprint goal (helps avoid gold plating)
• Promotes a sense of pride in the team’s work
There’s a few things to note about demos though. The Product Owner should have seen these features prior to being signed off (it is a bad sign if the demo is the first time the Product Owner sees the features). The demo should be short and to the point, you should only demo stories that have met your definition of done and have been accepted.
You mention that previously the team complained that the demos took too long to prepare for. This shouldn’t be the case, make sure you are only demonstrating the software and not preparing unnecessary documentation to support the demo such as powerpoint slides! The software should be the focus of the demo – demonstrating working software is where the value is
Was this answer helpful?
LikeDislike