The Sprint Review: Who Should Lead and Why It Matters
As I reflect on my experiences with Scrum, one question that often arises is: who should lead the Sprint Review? This is a pivotal moment in our Agile journey, and understanding its purpose is crucial for maximising the value we deliver in the next Sprint.
The Purpose of the Sprint Review
At its core, the Sprint Review is about gathering the best possible information from stakeholders. This ensures that our product backlog is in the best possible state, ready to guide our next steps. Here’s what we aim to achieve:
- Absorb Information: We need to synthesise what we’ve accomplished over the last two weeks, alongside insights from the business and market.
- Update the Product Backlog: By the end of the review, our backlog should reflect the most current and relevant information, setting us up for success in the next Sprint.
Who Should Lead the Sprint Review?
Now, let’s tackle the question of leadership. Who is accountable for delivering value? The answer is clear: the Product Owner.
- Accountability: The Product Owner is responsible for maximising the value of the work done by the Scrum Team. This makes them the ideal candidate to lead the Sprint Review.
- Facilitation: While anyone on the team can facilitate the review, it’s often the Product Owner who is best positioned to extract valuable insights from stakeholders. They have a vested interest in ensuring the review is as productive as possible.
Structuring the Sprint Review
So, how do we run an effective Sprint Review? The beauty of Agile is that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Here are some key elements I recommend:
Set the Scene: The Product Owner should start by reiterating the current vision of the product. This helps everyone align on what we’re working towards.
Define Goals: Clarify the current product goal and the tactical goal for the Sprint. What were we aiming to achieve? This sets the context for the discussions that follow.
Showcase Progress: If applicable, a demo of what was created during the Sprint can be incredibly valuable. This is not just about showing off; it’s about engaging stakeholders and gathering feedback.
Encourage Feedback: The feedback we receive during the demo is often more important than the demo itself. It’s our opportunity to learn and adapt.
Discuss Future Directions: Use this time to converse about what’s happening in the business and market. What insights can stakeholders share that might influence our future work?
Update the Backlog: Throughout the review, ensure that the product backlog is being updated with new information and insights. This is crucial for maintaining its relevance.
Conclusion
In summary, while the Product Owner is typically the one leading the Sprint Review, the format can be flexible. The key is to ensure that we’re fulfilling our accountability to maximise value.
I encourage you to experiment with different structures and approaches to find what works best for your team. Remember, the goal is to leave the Sprint Review with a clear, updated product backlog and a shared understanding of our next steps.
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So who should lead the Sprint review at why and how? I think that’s a great question. I’ll start with the purpose of the Sprint review, right? The purpose of the Sprint review is to get the best possible information from the stakeholders in order to maximize the value of the next Sprint. Right, the product backlog is in the best possible state. It’s got all of the things that we need in it. We’ve absorbed the, the, we’ve brought together the information from, you know, what we’ve done in the last two weeks in the product, what’s happened in the last two weeks in the business, what’s happened in the last two weeks in the market, and we’re mushing that together and actually updating the product backlog. So when we walk out of Sprint planning, we have that updated as up-to-date as we can, as effective as we can put it backlog, so we maximize the value that we deliver.
Um, so then the question of who is to lead it? Who on the scrum team is accountable for value delivery, for maximizing the value of the work done by the scrum team? Product owner, right? So I would normally expect the product owner to be the one leading the Sprint review. I mean, it can be anybody on the team. I have no problem with that, right? But the product owner is the accountable party for maximizing the value of the work done, so it’s in their best interest to make sure or enable the Sprint review is as valuable as possible. And quite often that means they are the facilitator, right? They are the ones who are getting the most out of it, right? Because that’s their accountability, they’re ensuring their accountability.
So perhaps they should create the flow of the Sprint review. What do you, if you’re a product owner, what do you need from your stakeholders this Sprint? Right, that’s what you’re trying to get to. How are you going to create and organize that event so that you maximize the chance of you getting the information that you need in the time that you need it, having the conversations that you need during that event?
Um, so how do you run it? Wow, that any way you like, as long as you get to the outcome, right? I don’t really care how you run it. So some teams do demos, some teams don’t do demos, right? Because they’re already in production. Perhaps a flow that I kind of like, um, I have it documented on my website, but a flow I kind of like is you need to use, you know, the product owner should be setting the scene at the start, right? What’s the current vision of the product? Let’s reset. This is what we’re talking about, is the vision. That’s what we’re trying to get towards. What’s the current product goal, right? What’s our current short-term or intermediate strategic goal that we’re trying to get to?
Um, and then what was our tactical goal this Sprint? What was it that we were actually focused on? What’s the outcome that we told the stakeholders at the beginning, the singular Sprint goal? What’s the outcome that we’re going to focus on? And then perhaps the team do a demo showing, you know, what it was, what we created in the last two weeks that’s pretty cool.
Um, but also we need to get feedback on that demo. That’s almost more important than anything else, is getting feedback on that demo. Um, but then if that’s the end of your Sprint review, then you’re missing out on a lot of extra stuff because perhaps we need to have a conversation about, yeah, we need to have a conversation about what’s happened in the business, what the stakeholders are coming to bring information, what information can we get out of the stakeholders about things that are coming up in the future, things that might be talked about in the business, changes in the market that we can bring into our story.
Um, and all the whole throughout this, we need to be actually updating the product backlog. So I think there’s lots of ways to run that, but those are the key information pieces that we need to get by the end of it. So run it however you like, whoever you like can facilitate it, but ultimately the accountability we’re fulfilling here is the product owner’s.
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