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Note that we have some Incomplete Pages That Require Work on this site:-)
Note that we have some Incomplete Pages That Require Work on this site:-)
I’ve had a number of discussions with teams recently where people are questioning the value of holding a Sprint Review. The feeling is that we are not getting good feedback from our internal or external stakeholders. Teams that raise this issue are often frustrated in that their prior experience with Sprint Reviews had been excellent. Today it feels like we are just going through the motions and teams find themselves in a bit of a rut.
Some of this is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are not excited about the work you have completed and the Sprint Review you are about to undertake, how can you expect your stakeholders to be excited. It turns out that many teams are, in fact, in a rut. Symptoms include:
But much worse than this, we are also not getting any feedback from customers.
The purpose of the Sprint Review is to get feedback on the increment just delivered by the team. Like all feedback the idea is to do this so that feedback is easily given (“frictionless”), timely and in the appropriate context. Done well, the Sprint Review has all these characteristics. We schedule a regular meeting immediately at the end of the Sprint, only demonstrate what has been done and then talk through what we’ve seen.
Some things that will help:
In most cases, the most important feedback is provided by customers of the product. Feedback from internal stakeholders can be around the functionality but more importantly is about making sure the team is addressing the technical and directional things they should be and, if they aren’t, determining how they can be helped to do the right thing. Internal stakeholders also help increase team engagement by being appreciative of the work being done by the team. This means that internal (especially management) stakeholders should be proactive about responding to what they are seeing. Feedback could be used to stress certain expectations, for example:
If you have nothing to input at least be explicit about what you think was good (eg “After seeing the demo, I cannot come up with anything I would have changed or done differently. BTW I really liked the way the user interface came together here.”)
The general principle of product feedback is to do whatever it takes to allow feedback on your product with minimal friction, within the shortest time-frame possible and so that the feedback is received in context. The Sprint Review is just one opportunity to get this. Other ways to get increased product feedback include: