Understanding and Apply Scrum [P8]: Scaling Scrum - 3 ideas to improve a scaled sprint review

Question 1

What should the Sprint Review be used for?

Answer 1

demonstration and inspection of developed increment

Question 2

What are 5 characteristics of a great sprint review?

Answer 2

• Stakeholders are diffuclt to recognize → blend in with everyone
• Every Developer participates → give feedback on their own product
• Lots of feedback → feedback party - everyone uses the product and shares experiences and lessons learned
• A tailor-made Sprint Review → e.g. market stalls format, centralized demo and discussion
• Follow up with Sprint Review + food

Question 3

What some pitfalls with having a Scaled Sprint Review?

Answer 3

• The Sprint Review becomes a demo
• Stakeholder abundance
• Developers are not participating anymore

Question 4

Elaborate on the pitfall “Sprint Review becomes a demo” for Scaled Sprint Reviews

Answer 4

large amount of one-sided demos start to exceed the opportunity of gathering in-depth feedback

Question 5

Elaborate on the pitfall “Stakeholder abundance” for Scaled Sprint Reviews

Answer 5

• many “one-time” visitors expect an explanation of the project/product as a whole, not necessarily an update about the prev. Sprint
• time consuming + doesn’t add any value for the Scrum Team who wants detailed feedback on their prev. Sprint

Question 6

Elaborate on the pitfall “Developers are not participating anymore” for Scaled Sprint Reviews

Answer 6

• As a consequence of the lacking feedback, not every member of the Scrum Team attends
• SM + PO start acting as the ambassadors of the Scrum Team
• fewer valuable dialogues between the stakeholders and the Development Team

Question 7

What are three ideas for experiments to improve Sprint Reviews?

Answer 7

• 1. Organize a monthly demo besides the bi-weekly Sprint Review
• 2. Organize”small circle” and “ large circle” 2-part Sprint Reviews
• 3. Continuous-flow acceptance decoupled from Sprint Reviews

Question 8

Explain the experiment idea “Organize a monthly demo besides the bi-weekly Sprint Review”

Answer 8

• sprint review - feedback
• demo - align everyone involved/interested - get up to speed

Question 9

Explain the experiment idea “Organize’small circle’ and ‘large circle’ 2-part Sprint Reviews”

Answer 9

• Part 1 → each team uses the first part of Sprint Review (say 40 mins for a 2 week sprint worth of stories) to get detailed feedback form their own “small circle” of mandated users/accepters → small group of 4-6 people which the PO works closely with for Backlog, story refinement and acceptance → “is it useable?”, “does it meet criteria?”
• Part 2 → joint demo - “large circle” → each team presents a summary of the increment and its value (not the details per story) to other teams and management/wider stakeholders
  — feedback asked: “is this valuable and contributing to the whole?”, “going in the right direction?”, “are there upcoming dependencies?”
• The “small circle” has intense contact with is own Scrum team throughout the Sprint and Sprint Review.
• The “large circle” has contact with all Scrum Teams in product program every 6 weeks

Question 10

Explain the experiment idea “3. Continuous-flow acceptance decoupled from Sprint Reviews”

Answer 10

• get detailed feedback and acceptance on a per story basis “as soon as it’s done”
• Good when teams are very good at getting stories done very quickly i.e. in a few days
• Stories usually are very well vertically sliced and small
• Need to have end-users close at hand and trust from PO that the end-users and team can collaborate without them
• Still need Sprint Reviews - e.g. engaging with stakeholders’ wider concerns, for visibility and appreciation, “feed-forward” for reconfirming the direction