Agile Mentors Podcast

Join Brian Milner and Julie Chickering as they discuss the true purpose of the Sprint Review and why it is a mistake to call this event a ‘demo’.

Overview 

Brian Milner talks with Julie Chickering about Sprint Reviews, addressing the myth that the Sprint Review is primarily an opportunity to ‘demo’ the increment to stakeholders.

As an experienced Project Management Professional, Julie shares her perspective on the Sprint Reviews from a project management viewpoint. She shares different ways to approach this event and offers advice on what components are needed for a good quality Sprint Review.

Brian and Julie agree that the Sprint Review meeting is probably the most important Scrum event for product people as it encourages collaboration and generates the feedback required to increase the chances of creating a successful product. However, opinions on who should attend the meeting, how it should be run, and how to collect relevant feedback can change quite considerably from one organization to another.

Are you holding Sprint Reviews every Sprint?

Do you have Stakeholders in your Sprint Reviews?

Are you getting valuable feedback from your Stakeholders in your Sprint Reviews?

Brian and Julie discuss why you should be answering “Yes” to each of these questions and share their tips on how to make your Sprint Review more effective.

Listen now to discover:

·       00:06:06 - How the Scrum Review saves time in the long run

·       00:10:20 - The benefits of reducing the distance between the developer and the end user 

·       00:11:49 - The Stakeholder feedback window – how long should feedback take?

·       00:12:19 - Why you should never skip a Sprint Review

·       00:12:30 - Why Stakeholders need to be constantly engaged for a Scrum team to be successful

·       00:13:49 - The integral role of the Product Owner in Sprint Reviews

·       00:17:05 - Why you shouldn’t cancel a Sprint Review even if work isn’t “done”

·       00:21:36 - Why you need to clarity the definition of “done” to Stakeholders

·       00:27:19 - Tips and feedback to anyone wanting to improve their Sprint Reviews

·       00:31:02 - The importance of preparation before Sprint Reviews

·       00:34:29 - Methods of collecting feedback

·       00:39:32 - The best order for a Sprint review

·       00:41:36 - How to coach stakeholders to increase team productivity

Listen next time when we’ll be discussing… 

Sprint Retrospectives with guest co-host Scott Dunn. You’ll learn the primary importance of this Scrum event and how to run effective and engaging Sprint Retrospective meetings that boost productivity and lead to positive change.

References and resources mentioned in the show

·       Daniel Pink – When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

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This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He’s passionate about making a difference in people’s day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work.

Julie Chickering is a certified Scrum Trainer as well as a CST, PMP, PMI-ACP CSM, CSPO, and Path to CSP Educator. She believes that Agile practices are packed with potential - to enable business agility, and breakthrough results. Julie loves to help people implement agile even when the environments are messy, people are complicated, and situations are challenging. She brings real-world experience working with people at all levels to adopt and roll out realistic Agile strategies organization-wide.