Sprint Review

Summary: Inspection and adaption related to the product increment of functionality.
Participants: Team, Product Owner, Scrum Master. Other stakeholders as appropriate, invited by the Product Owner.
Duration: Timeboxed to one hour per week of Sprint.

After the Sprint ends, there is the Sprint Review, where people review the Sprint. Present at this meeting are the Product Owner, Team members, and Scrum Master, plus customers, users, stakeholders, experts, executives, and anyone else who is interested. For a two-week Sprint it is a maximum length of two hours. Anyone present is free to ask questions and give input.

The Review is often mislabeled the “demo” but that does not capture the real intent of this meeting. A key idea in Scrum is inspect and adapt. To see and learn what is going on and then evolve based on feedback, in repeating cycles. The Sprint Review is an inspect and adapt activity for the product. It is a time for the Product Owner to learn what is going on with the product and with the Team (that is, a review of the Sprint); and for the Team to learn what is going on with the Product Owner and the market. Consequently, a critical element of the Review is an in-depth conversation between the Team and Product Owner to learn the situation, to get advice, and so forth. The review definitely includes using the actual live software that the Team built during the Sprint, but if the focus of the review is only looking at the product rather than having a conversation, there is an imbalance.

The “live software” portion of the Sprint Review is not a “presentation” the Team gives – there is no slideware. It is meant to be a hands-on inspection of the real software running live, for example, in a sandbox development environment. There will be one or more computers in the Review room on which people can inspect and use the live software. Prefer an active session in which real users and the Product Owner do hands-on interaction with the software, rather than a passive-session demo from the Team.

Aim to spend no more than 30 minutes preparing for Sprint Review, otherwise it suggests something is wrong.