Based on my experience working with different Scrum teams, I have observed few things that will reduce the effectiveness of Sprint Review. This article helps you to improve your Sprint Review events.

What is Sprint Review?

Sprint Review is an inspect and adapt opportunity for the Scrum team to inspect the product increment with the stakeholders and adapt the product backlog with the feedback received. 

Stakeholders are a must:

Do ensure to include your stakeholders in your Sprint Review. These stakeholders are the real users of your Product, not just some of your internal teams or your customer support team members. Having real users in Sprint Review really helps you to gauge your Product and see how valuable it is for the users who use it.  

As most of the teams follow a 2 weeks Sprints (remember, Scrum says Sprint cannot be more than a month, so it is up to you to decide your Sprint duration), and the Review meeting happens at the last day, it will be effective if the Product owner can share the Review meeting invite after the Sprint planning itself based on the selected items for the Sprint. This helps stakeholders to plan to be available for the Review meeting.

Get prepared:

Sometimes, teams will get into a situation where they cannot demonstrate the increment in Sprint Review due to various reasons such as: The person who demonstrates was not involved in the development, shifting of the people for every item demonstrated in Sprint Review, Lack of communication and presentation skills, Lack of answering skills. So it is better to do a quick trial run of Sprint Review before coming to the Sprint Review and identify team members who demonstrate the increment before coming to the Review will address this issue.

Product owner is not a Stakeholder:

Most of the teams I observed in their Scrum journey beginning, they treat Product Owner as a stakeholder. It is not, Product Owner is part of the Scrum team. So show the Product Backlog Items done during the Sprint to the Product Owner and get his/her feedback. This will reduce the surprises from the Stakeholders during the Sprint review.

It must be working software:

Some teams will prepare colorful and beautiful presentations or documents to demonstrate in Sprint Review. Remember, “They know when they see it”. That means the Stakeholders will understand more on your Product when they see it working, not the presentations. Showcase the fully functional and ready to ship functionality in Sprint Review.

Make it exciting:

Create excitement in the Sprint Review so that Stakeholders can participate with enthusiasm. Lets say, you build a small flight booking functionality in the current Sprint and you are demonstrating the same to the Stakeholders. Ask one of the Stakeholders’ phone number and get the itinerary delivered to that mobile. Also, take a hard copy printout of the itinerary and give it to Stakeholders in the Sprint Review. This helps them to experience the whole flow and also can check the correctness of content. 

Do not deviate:

You may have some Stakeholders who are interested in knowing the implementation details of the items or they want to showcase their technical capabilities. It is not bad but it is not the place for this discussion. Let the team and Stakeholders focus on inspecting and adapting the Product Increment during the Sprint Review and if required, you can schedule a future meeting to discuss the additional details such as implementation. This will improve the focus on Sprint Review.

Rate the Review:

Ask your Stakeholders to give a rating for the Review from their experience and excitement point of view. You can use a simple rating of 1 (boring) to 5 (excited). If the rating is low such as 1 or 2, then ask the participants, what they expect in the upcoming Sprint Review to improve their rating.  

Summarize:

It is a good idea to quickly summarize what feedback you have noted from Stakeholders and how it is going to be included in upcoming Sprints, this will create interest in them to wait for the upcoming Sprint Reviews. Also, involve the Stakeholders in identifying what they want to have in upcoming Sprint to increase the value of the Product.