Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash

What is the main purpose of a sprint review

The Sprint Review is one of the key ceremonies defined by the Agile Scrum framework. It occurs at the end of each sprint. Its purpose is to measure each of the stories committed in the sprint for completeness or doneness as defined in the project’s Definition of Done.

The Sprint Review usually includes a live demo of the completed stories. Live demos can be fragile, I like to do a rehearsal of the demo in advance and lock down the demo environment from changes. After each feature demo give the audience a chance to ask questions and offer suggestions. Make sure a team member is capturing feedback.

The Sprint Review includes a quick look at the work committed to the sprint and what was completed to satisfy the definition of done.

Scrum’s Sprint Review is a critical Scrum event. It answers the question of whether the Scrum Team is still on track delivering the best possible value to the customers and the organization. (scrum.org)

The objective of the Sprint Review is to refine the backlog and provide product course corrections. Feedback from the demo feeds into new stories that will improve the product.

What is the difference between the sprint review and sprint retrospective

These two Scrum ceremonies have very similar names and both occur at the end of a Sprint so it is easy to confuse them.

Sprint Review

The Sprint Review is a completion of sprint ceremony, even celebration where the team shares the solutions they have so skillfully built and tested. Working features should be demoed live, the story acceptance criteria can be highlighted to show that the feature works as expected.

I like to introduce the Sprint Review with a 2 or 3 page slide deck highlighting the completed stories and the stories that are still in progress. The developer that built it demonstrates the story. QA team members can help demo failure scenarios and the robustness of the solution. Invite everyone to the Sprint Review, stakeholders, leadership, other teams. The Product Owner is free to invite any interested party. The review and demo is an <inspect and adapt* exercise for the product deliverables.

Sprint Retrospective

The Sprint Retrospective however, is a team only event and is focused on how the team worked together in the sprint. This is a chance for the team to improve their process. Stakeholders and other team members should not be included in the Retrospective. It is a time for reflection and self improvement.

Which topics should be discussed in the Sprint Review

The focus of the Sprint Review is to evaluate the work that was completed in the sprint and to deliver it to the Product Owner. The focus is on the features completed in the sprint, a disciplined approach is to only show work that has fully achieved the definition of done.

Summary

The Sprint Review is a highly motivating Scrum ceremony for the team, and greatly increases transparency into the project progress. The Sprint Review is made up of a summary of the sprint work that was completed and a live demo of that work by the developers that built it. The purpose of the sprint review is to get feedback on the new features and turn that feedback into new stories.

Sources Cited

What is a Sprint Review?, Scrum.org