In the real world, a sprint is a quick dash at full-throttle. Well, that’s exactly what a sprint is in the world of Scrum, too. Scrum sprints are short, specific, and extremely focused on getting to the end goal fast but without cutting corners. Sprints are timeboxed events, with a fixed maximum time for each activity from the daily standup to sprint planning and the sprint review. 

The sprint review is a meeting between the scrum development team and product owner, during which the team demonstrates and discusses the work done during the sprint. The product owner reviews the tested features and acts as a single point of review and approval. The backlog is updated based on feedback received in the review.

Who should attend the sprint review?

While the product owner is traditionally the only member required to attend sprint reviews, they are more objective and productive if internal stakeholders from the development team, business analysts, project managers, account managers, and so on are included – as well as external stakeholders from the client or business-facing team.

Why is it important to involve multiple stakeholders in sprint reviews?

1. It’s a chance to share milestones

The sprint review is more than just a demo of the product. It tells all attendees how far the project has come and how much more there is to go. It offers transparency in terms of project progress and, when multiple stakeholders attend, they can also inspect and adapt, give suggestions, and review what has happened so far along with discussions on how to move forward. It keeps all technical and non-technical stakeholders aware of the position and the demands of the project, including timelines.

2. It’s a chance to see different perspectives and get feedback

Sprint reviews are the time to ask questions, try new features, make observations, and provide feedback. As there are several stakeholders involved, both internal and external, it’s good to gather different ways to view progress and product early on in the development process. Fundamental vision-level changes need to be caught early and well-attended sprint reviews are the way to do it. Otherwise, you may just end up with such issues being flagged during user acceptance testing at the end of the project, every development team’s worst nightmare! A sprint review, which lasts a couple of hours for a two to three-week sprint, typically offers enough time to accommodate opinions and feedback from multiple stakeholders.

However, involving too many people could open up the team to too much feedback. It is the responsibility of the product owner to prioritize changes and ensure the team doesn’t get overwhelmed.

3. It’s a chance to guard against scope creep

‘Scope creep’ is when the project scope grows unexpectedly or without following the proper procedures. It can affect project schedule, budget, costs, and so on and is among the most common project management risks. It’s better to get all the stakeholders on board at an early stage, which is in effect, what a sprint review does.

At CloudNow, we’ve learned how adopting agile scrum principles at every level of the organization can result in a significant rise in productivity. Contact our experts today to explore how to get your sprints, and sprint reviews, right.