Christian: Hi, I'm Christian Antoine.

Dee: I'm Dee Rhoda. We're with Collaborative Leadership Team. Christian, do you do Sprint Reviews?

Christian: Yes, we do Sprint Reviews at the end of every Sprint.

Dee: Okay. Well, why do you do them?

Christian: This is our chance to see where the Product is at and talk to the Development Team that are building it for to see if we're building the right thing, or if we're heading down the wrong way. Good or bad, we always want to show where we're at or where we're not at and share what we're learning.  This is a very important opportunity for the Stakeholders, Executives, and anybody else that is interested in the product, to come and see how the product is progressing.  They can “see & feel” the product while asking questions and giving the Product Owner new ideas about how the product could evolve.  

Dee: Hmm, because, you know, our team didn't really produce anything this last Sprint so as a Scrum Master I was thinking about canceling the whole thing.  

Christian: I can see why you'd think that, but actually it's not necessarily meant to be a demonstration of what you did do. We would like to strive for a potentially shippable product.  If you don't have anything that you can demonstrate, you still have that Sprint Review because you want to tell them, "Here's what we learned," or, "Here's what we're going to try next."  And let them ask questions and get a better understanding of the product.  This is a great opportunity for everybody to come together and have a face to face conversation about the product.  Status reports are good, but nothing will replace the information that can be shared (flowed) during a face to face conversation.

Who do you see at your Sprint Reviews?

Dee: Anybody and everybody that needs to know what's going on with the Product that we're building. I definitely need my Product Owner there teeing it up. I need my Development Team there because they own pushing this out, and I need Stakeholders, Business Partners, and anybody else from other Scrum Teams that might need to hear about what we're doing.

Christian: What about your Scrum Master?

Dee: They have to be there. They're the facilitator of the whole process. They're the one even before the Sprint Review making sure that the Product Owner is ready to do that sprint review.  This meeting is important for the Product Owner to manage the Stakeholders.. This reduces the need for the Product Owner to have a dozen or more one-off meetings sharing information with individual Stakeholders.  Brining them all together into one room allows for information to be shared between Stakeholders.  Sometimes that information may not even have anything to do with the Product, but it is still essential for the organization.  The Sprint Review can help build all kinds of relationships.  

Christian: Cool.

Dee: Yeah.

Christian: How do you capture feedback? Because I'm sure if you showed somebody something, they might see it and go, "Huh? You know what? I don't know if I like that anymore."

Dee: That stuff has to be captured, as you said, and put on the Product Backlog so that the Product Owner can review that with their Scrum Team and anybody else who might be interested in refining that Product Backlog. We call that a PBR.  Product Backlog Request.  

Christian: I think I heard that somewhere.

Dee: Me too. Me too, yeah.

Christian: Let's say the Scrum Team didn't finish some work. They got some work done but some work is not done. What do they do with that work?

Dee: Well, then that needs to be refined. It needs to be a discussion between the Scrum Team, the Product Owner, Stakeholders and Business Partners to decide whether or not we're even going to complete that work, and if we're going to complete that work when we're going to complete it.  Just because the work was prioritized before, it may not be important anymore  

Christian: Sweet.

Dee: Yeah.

Christian: You know, I think we should point them to where we're supposed to go next if they want more information.

Dee: I think we should too. Why don't you point?

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