We don’t need no sprint review

It starts to feel like one of those mantra’s my mother used to say: empty your plate, brush your teeth and for god’s sake, do a sprint review! Why is this very important scrum event still omitted so often? What happens if you don’t have a sprint review, and how can you convince your team to have one? Are there any alternatives? Let’s explore within this blog.

Reasons to not have a sprint review

Strangers are scary people, and so are your customers. They pay the bills, keep the lights on, and ask annoying questions. I haven’t met many developers who happily talk about their product in front of their users and answer their questions. Whether they don’t want to be bothered, or have shocking flashbacks to the time they had to present in middle school, it is just not their forté.

On the other side, we have the stakeholders and users. In the beginning, they typically participate and even contribute, but at some point they might get disappointed. Their requests are added to a long list of other requests (or must-haves) and never see the light of day again. That is when they start to loose interest, they decide the review is not for them, and stop participating or just don’t show up.

It is a must-have!

The short feedback loop for the sprint review is one of the most important parts of Scrum. Interaction with stakeholders is paramount — they give direction and guide the team to make the right things, as opposed to the retrospective, where the team investigates how to make the thing right.

I point to Martin Fowler — in his blogpost back in 2011, he clearly explains that if it hurts, you should do it more often! If you don’t like interacting with stakeholders, I can imagine you’d like to avoid them. Until they either explode or escalate so you can’t avoid them. This strengthens your believe that you don’t like stakeholders, because now all they do is nag. If you’d just interacted with them a bit more, maybe they’ll give you a compliment or two and that might give you a whole different view. They are just human beings, you know.

Ever ate the same bland food for a week straight? What about a month? Or a year? Bored yet? Apart from that eating the same thing over and over again might lead to deficiencies, it is bo-ring! Spice up your presentation like you spice up your food. Use breakouts, lean coffee or a marketplace, throw in a Liberating Structure for all you care. Take away the fear of presenting from you developers (because the review is not a presentation!) and spice it up with all the needed interaction you’d like! Alternating forms gives new viewpoints and insights, like standing on a high vista is different from a walk between the trees. Though they can be equally mesmerising. Take that feedback with you (yes, I’m looking at you Product Owners!) and go run with it. Let your stakeholders know what you have done with it and keep them updated.

Is there no alternative?

As a Scrum Master, I am inclined to say no, but honestly, I do not believe in strictly adhering to scrum if that has no use. Is your key stakeholder very busy and unavailable at the same time every sprint? Consider having a separate call with this person where you shortly inform the stakeholder of your progress.

Are you a worldwide organisation, and can’t find a time suitable for everyone? I can imagine doing it twice is counterproductive, but you don’t have to, record your review or demo your product and users can watch it in their own time.

Still afraid of presentations? You really don’t have to. Nowhere in the guide it states it has to be a presentation, the active experimentation is far more valuable. Just write some simple user instructions, hand them out, and wish them good luck. Be ready for problems and questions, but that is what it’s all about!

Closure

I have long considered the retrospective to be the most important scrum event of them all, but lately, I came around and learned otherwise. Yes, retro’s are fun and really nice to organise, but each scrum event has a power of their own, and so does the review.

If your team struggles with the review, it is your (I’m looking at you Scrum Masters!) responsibility to help your team find a way they are comfortable with. Allow your team to experiment and investigate new ways. Maybe they’ll learn that those stakeholders aren’t as scary as they seem. And as my Mother said — if they bite, just bite back.

All images from Pexels.com. First image by Cowomen, second one by Pawel Danilyuk and the third one by Ivan Samkov.