Sprint Review

When a sprint has come to an end — it’s time to review the results.

For this, a Scrum team holds a Sprint Review.

The purpose of a Sprint Review is to check whether the team correctly understood the Product Owner’s (or customer’s) requirements and to evaluate whether the Sprint Goal was achieved.

During the Sprint Review, the team:

• shares the results of their work with the Product Owner, stakeholders, and/or company management

• demonstrates and tests the completed product increment

• discusses plans for the future work on the project

It is important to distinguish a Sprint Review from a Sprint Retrospective, even though both events are equally important. The easiest way to separate them is by the questions they answer:

• Sprint Review answers: “What was done?” and “What will be done next?”

• Sprint Retrospective answers: “What got in the way of our work?”, “What can we do to be more productive?”, and addresses communication or process issues within the team

Review Format

The Sprint Review is not a presentation or a reporting session. It is conducted as a dialogue between the team and stakeholders. The team receives feedback directly from the Product Owner and stakeholders, which is why the entire Scrum Team should be present.

For example: the team’s task was to create and implement a payment module in an application. During the sprint, they designed the logic of the module, created prototypes, and wrote the code. At the Sprint Review, the team demonstrates the completed module. The Product Owner interacts with it and performs a test payment.

During the Sprint Review, the Product Owner may provide feedback and, based on it, add new items to the Product Backlog. For example, if the increment needs adjustments.

Suppose the module works and payments go through successfully, which means the technical task is complete. However, the system does not send payment receipts to users. To address this issue, the Product Owner creates a new Product Backlog Item.

Afterward, the team discusses what will be pulled into the next sprint. Together with the Product Owner, they review:

• the priorities of the remaining Product Backlog Items

• the progress toward achieving project goals

• any technical debt carried over from the sprint

By answering these questions, the Product Owner and the team define the next Sprint Goal and select the items for the upcoming sprint.