Take Time for Sprint Reviews

So you have started being Agile. Okay, you have started trying to be Agile.
You have spent th last month writing the stories, estimating the sptries and tasks,
you Scrumed everyday, unit tested your code, and completed some points. Now it is
time to show off what you have done.

The Sprint Review session can be at it’s best, a party; and can be at it’s worst,
a funeral. To make it the party variety requires some forethought and planning. It
really is okay for you to spend some time getting ready for the Sprint Review. After
all, this is the one meeting a month that the CEO just may be coming to in which you
will stand at the front of the room.

Why We Are Doing This

There are several reasons that a Sprint Review Meeting is a critical part of your
Agile development process.

1. Show the value that your team has added to the company.
   
   This is an opportunity to show that your team has made a serious contribution to the
   bottom line of the company. Crudely stated (and I have said it, dang me), you get
   to prove that you are worth your salary. While this is certainly the half-empty approach,
   it is a pretty darn powerful motivator.

2. Get feedback.
   This is the perfect opportunity to get the COO or the CEO to notice that
   this project is not going the way they thought. In fact, what if there was a basic
   breakdown in communication and you were working on the wrong thing? Of course, this
   could never happen, but pretend. It is far worse to do well on the wrong thing that
   poorly on the right one.It
   is far worse to do well on the wrong thing that poorly on the right one.
   

3. Celebrate your accomplishments.
   The value of celebration cannot be understated in the ongoing health of a
   team. If you never take time to dwell on your mutual accomplishments, how can you
   be proud of what you have done? Strive for a party atmosphere with high fives and
   the occasional, “Right on! That’s cool!”

   Have beer.

Showing Your Work.

Now that you know why this is important, how do you do it well? To answer that, I
have assembled a hodgepodge of quotes, suggestions, and observations were earned the
hard way; by getting it wrong to start.

Plan for the review; know what you will show before you walk into the room. Not only
that, but you should have spent at least an hour preparing for it to make your presentation
as impressive as possible. Remember that this is your primary opportunity to demonstrate
the fruit of your hard labor. This is a big deal, remember that.

There is some aspect of dog and pony show to this process and to many developers who
want to get back to work, this feels like a waste of time and energy. It isn’t. Having
the other people in your company understand your work product is one of the most powerful
things this process enables. You may or may not have some power point slides (hopefully
not), but certainly you should have an application that your are showing.

But Don’t Over Do It

Don’t spend too much time polishing your presentation. Particularly with people who
are uncomfortable in front of groups, preparing for a sprint review can get out of
control. Try to limit yourself to no more than a day. Hopefully less time will be
necessary.

Lastly

Have a fire fighting bucket to report on. We all live in a real world, and the real
world doesn’t always let you work on note cards. Things come up that, try as you might,
you cannot say” no” to. When you have spent an hour saving that client deliverable
or bring back exchange because the admin is out, remember it. Go back into your iteration
and put in a story that you get to show completion on during your review.