Sprint Demo/Sprint Review Guide

This is part of a short series on scrum ceremonies and I’ve done some short pieces for each one. Here’s the complete list:

Attendees

Project Manager/Scrum Master
Product Owner
Developers
Stakeholders
QA (optional)

How-to: Sprint Demo/Sprint Review

Some teams or companies like to bundle the sprint demo/review with the team retro. I’d advise against this, since the intended audience for both ceremonies is different but it could be done in one super long session with stakeholders leaving after the demo.

1. Walkthrough of new features

This is where your developers run through what they’ve built as a user. Users don’t care about your Big O or how neat and organised your code is – they want to know how it will affect their day-to-day.

If you’ve documented everything so far, great! Now is the time to share your documentation with your users and show them how to find it.

2. Review what’s coming next

Give a brief summary of upcoming features and ask your audience if it still matches with their priorities. If it does, then great! If not, take note of it and address it at your next backlog grooming session.

3. Collect feedback

Open the floor to any questions from your users. Does this address their biggest pain points? Is there anything missing? Could anything be simplified or more intuitive? What do they like about the product, and is there any element of it that can be applied elsewhere? Remember: positive feedback can be just as valuable as negative feedback!