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Sprint Review

Sprint Review

Sprint Review is one of the 5 events defined in the Scrum Framework as per Scrum Guide 2020. The Scrum Team presents what they have delivered during the Sprint and stakeholders provide feedback. The timebox for this event is 4 hours for a month long  and the outcome is the updated Product Backlog. 

Scrum has 5 events 

  • Sprint
  • Sprint Planning 
  • Daily Scrum 
  • Sprint Review
  • Sprint Retrospective

Sprint Review happens toward the end of the Sprint, before the end of the Sprint Retrospective. 

Who Attends

This event is for the entire Scrum Team(Scrum Master, Product Owner and Developers) and the stakeholders. 

For the right feedback, it is really important that right stakeholders are invited for this event. Scrum Team can use techniques like stakeholder mapping to identify and manage stakeholders better. However, remember that right stakeholders or their interest can change as the product progresses.   

Purpose

Inspect the Increment, obtain feedback, discuss the key information and adapt the Product Backlog based on the feedback and discussions. 

TimeBox 

4 hours for one month long Sprint.  

For shorter Sprints, the timebox could be shorter. 

 

Few Tips To Make Sprint Review A Success

To me, Sprint Review is the most underrated Scrum event. Many Scrum Teams/organisation consider this as just a demo, which is not the purpose of the event. Worst antipatterns, I have observed are: 
– No stakeholders presence
– Product Owner treat this as an event to accept/reject the Scrum Teams’ work. (Dear Product Owner you are also part of the Scrum Team) 
 
Below are few tips to  make it a success: 
  1. Vision and Goals provide the direction and explain ‘Why’ of the product. Start the event with reminding everyone what the Product Vision and Product Goal are. Make sure everyone understands them. 
  2. Share the Sprint Goal and connect it with the Product Goal.  
  3. Only show the work that is ‘Done’. Undone work reduces the  transparency. 
  4. Involve the right stakeholder. In my experience, many Sprint Reviews are not engaging because of lack of interest from stakeholders. Stakeholder mapping is a great tool for the Scrum Team for this purpose. (one of the best stakeholders could be end users)
  5. Share the product progress using  visualisation techniques such as Burn Up charts.
  6. Discuss the future of the product. Share what Scrum Team may work in the next few Sprints. Ask stakeholders if it meets their expectations. 
  7. Share key information such as timeline and budget. 

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