Sprint Review
Description
This recipe will guide you to prepare and cook a good Sprint Review. It´s all about sharing results and conclusions, receiving feedback and getting well aligned with your stakeholders. Prepare service, serve it fresh and get happy customers!
A key to succesful Sprint Reviews is to think of it as a value adding event. Scrum Team delivery on Sprint Goals combined with interactive feedback, in a creative atmosphere, has potential to provide great outcome. As great food served to enthusiastic people gives a good experience!
Ingredients
- 1 Scrum Master
- 1 Development Team
- 1 Product Owner
- Business Stakeholders (1-5)
- Technical Stakeholders (1-5)
- A meeting room or sufficient team area
Preparation
It is somewhat of a balance act to prepare well for a Sprint Review. It should be prepared well enough without being gold plating. You want fresh results and still thought through conclusions.
The Scrum Master creates a frame document in which the team members can add material as they progress with sprint deliveries. So that at the end of the sprint the document is complete. Typically a day before the Sprint Review, the team meets, goes through the material together to align and select what topics and material to bring up in the review.
It is important that the Product Owner updates the high-level plan in order to be transparent on actual status. As this frames the walk through of the topics selected by the team.
The Stakeholders needs to have the Sprint Review invitations well in advance. They also need to get training in Scrum and the purpose of the Sprint Review, as well as their own role in the review.
Cooking method
The Scrum Master initiates the review by greeting everybody welcome, goes through the agenda of topics selected and kicks off the meeting.
The Product Owner gives an update on the high-level plan and top risks. Including critical customer information. Feedback from stakeholders and potential discussions.
The PO shares the outcome of the sprint versus sprint goals. And highlights key topics to dive into during the review.
Each topic is presented by Development Team member(s) asking for input/feedback. The topics are presented in a visual hands-on fact-based way. With conclusions and possible ways forward. A key here is to get engaged stakeholders through interactive discussions. So that the output from the review is a value add that can be brought into the next sprint.
At the end the Product Owner shares draft Sprint Goals for coming sprint and asks for feedback on those.
If time allows the Scrum Master takes the opportunity to capture feedback on the Sprint Review as such.
The Sprint Review is timeboxed to one hour in a two week sprint.
Cooking Tips
- Don´t go for a 7-course dinner! As you want interactive discussions and collaboration between the Scrum Team and Stakeholders, each topic will take time. For a 1h service select tops 3 topics, as there need to be time set apart for the intro with high-level plan and risks as well as some discussion time at the end of the review.
- A succesful dinner is based on the combination of great food and enthusiastic people! Therefore it is key to create a good atmosphere at the reviews. If you notice that there are negative vibes, either individual coaching talk or group retro discussions will likely be needed. See our recipe for a good Sprint Retrospective.
- Since the purpose of the Sprint Review is adding value to the product and align the path towards product release (it is key to have a forward looking approach), it will be important to chat with stakeholders as well as team members and capture feedback. In order to enhance the outcome. Great food and enthusiastic people means good experience that enhance outcome!
- Finally, don´t forget to take notes on agreements and requests that come up during the review, to be sent out together with the Sprint Review material. And… remember to celebrate success whenever relevant!
