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Sprint Demonstration Planning ensures that the Sprint Demo meeting appropriately reflects the work accomplished by the Scrum Team.

Quick reference

Sprint Demonstration

Sprint Demonstration Planning ensures that the Sprint Demo meeting appropriately reflects the work accomplished by the Scrum Team.

When to Use

Sprint Demonstration Planning should be done several days before the Sprint Demo to ensure that the Scrum Team and Product Owner are prepared for a productive meeting.

Instructions

  • The Sprint Demo is the primary technical review in Agile Scrum projects. 
  • A Sprint Demo occurs at the end of each Sprint.
  • The Sprint Demo is between the Scrum Team and the Product Owner, although the Product Owner will often invite other stakeholders to participate.
  • Although there is no formal role for the Scrum Master at a Sprint Demo, often that individual facilitates the meeting and takes notes of the decisions and comments.
  • The goal for the Product Owner in the Sprint Demo is to ensure that the Sprint results are a Minimally Viable Product or if it is the last Sprint in a Release that it is a Potentially Shippable Product. 
    • This implies that at least most of the functionality that was reflected on the Story Cards is completed.
    • The product has adequate functionality that it can be used for internal and possibly external testing.
  • The goal for the Scrum Team in the Sprint Demo is to show that the work they completed was done correctly and meets the Demo Criteria.
  • Recommended agenda for the Sprint Demo meeting:
    1. Introductions and explanation of the process.
    2. Overview of the design approach used and how the work was completed.
    3. Demonstrate the functionality of the product/system
      • Testing by Product Owner.
      • Testing by invited stakeholders.
      • Test the use cases or test conditions specified.
    4. Explain any Stories not completed and why.
      • Recommend Story changes for the next Sprint.
      • Recommend Story elimination and rationale.
      • Story will be considered by Product Owner in the Sprint Refinement and a disposition of each uncompleted Story will be made.
    5. Review results and answer any final questions.
  • The Scrum Team should appropriately use “Industry Standards” and “Engineering Discipline” when doing the development effort.
    • Agile/Scrum is not undisciplined chaos.
  • Standards are often embedded in the Demo Criteria.
    • Demo Criteria specifies performance based upon levels found in standards.
    • Demo Criterial cites compliance with a particular code or standard.
    • Demo Criteria cites attainment of product certifications.
  • Design work must comply with Engineering Discipline.
    • Documentation Standards.
    • Technical practices.
  • Product/system developed must be safe and compliant to be viable and practical.

Hints and Tips

  • Don’t guess at Demo Criteria, if you don’t know or understand the criteria ask for clarification from the Product Owner.
  • Sprint Demo meetings can be quite short (30 minutes) or long (all day) depending upon the complexity of the product or system and the level of review that is conducted by the Product Owner and stakeholders. Coordinate with the Product Owner ahead of time to set expectations.
  • Bring the product/system and the documentation to the Sprint Demo meeting. Don’t show pictures of what you did – show the actual results. If necessary hold the Sprint Demo meeting at a location where the Product Owner and stakeholders have access to the system.
  • Many engineers and developers dislike doing documentation. Ensure the Demo Criteria clearly describes the documentation requirement. That is often a separate task for a Story. Remember the Story is not done until all the tasks are done.
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  • 00:04 Hi, this is Ray Sheen.
  • 00:05 On Agile Scrum projects,
  • 00:07 the Sprint demo is a critical component in the overall project execution.
  • 00:12 Let's take a look at this event.
  • 00:13 Sprint execution is usually fast and furious.
  • 00:17 Every team member is working on a task or story.
  • 00:20 No one is waiting to be told what to do.
  • 00:22 Every one is 100% dedicated.
  • 00:24 They're not busy on other projects or other activities.
  • 00:28 The daily scrum team meeting keeps the pulse quick and
  • 00:31 the tracking is action focused.
  • 00:33 If you like to get things done, then this environment can be intoxicating.
  • 00:38 Every scrum team member has selected a task or story to work on.
  • 00:42 They're normally selected in priority order and
  • 00:45 as a rule of thumb people select the tasks that they estimated.
  • 00:49 Keep in mind that the team is self organizing.
  • 00:51 Each member can be doing their own task or they may be operating in teams or
  • 00:56 small groups working on the tasks.
  • 00:59 The scrum team is conducting a regular scrum team meeting, usually every day.
  • 01:04 At this meeting they're reporting on the status of their tasks and
  • 01:08 stories in the whip column.
  • 01:09 Since it is only the whip column work in process that is discussed,
  • 01:14 the meeting usually is only about 10 or 15 minutes long.
  • 01:17 Progress is easily tracked on the scrum board.
  • 01:20 When a scrum team member is free to start a new task they will move the task or
  • 01:25 story card from the Sprint backlog column to the WIP column.
  • 01:28 When they complete the task or story they move the card to the Done column.
  • 01:33 The scrum team member will also provide an estimate of how much work is needed to
  • 01:38 complete any task or story that is still in the WIP column.
  • 01:42 That is so that the scrum master can update the Burn-down Chart.
  • 01:46 Finally, scrum team members identify any new roadblocks that they have
  • 01:51 encountered and the scrum master provides the updates or
  • 01:54 the status of any previously identified roadblocks.
  • 01:57 Let's take time now to look at roles and responsibilities and
  • 02:01 deliverables for a team that's in the middle of a Sprint.
  • 02:04 The scrum team members are doing the work and
  • 02:07 providing the status updates as I mentioned.
  • 02:09 The scrum master is doing a lot of things to facilitate the process.
  • 02:13 They're conducting the meetings, updating the various boards, and
  • 02:17 working on roadblocks.
  • 02:18 Part of the facilitation role will also be the coach team members who are struggling
  • 02:23 with communication or the agile scrum process.
  • 02:26 The product owner is often hovering about the scrum team to answer questions and
  • 02:30 help remove roadblocks.
  • 02:32 Occasionally, I've had a product owner who was disengaged.
  • 02:35 They attended the planning meeting, ignored the team during the sprint, and
  • 02:38 then showed up again at Sprint demo.
  • 02:40 This is will likely lead to a disappointing Sprint demo.
  • 02:43 The team almost always has questions about something along the way and
  • 02:47 the product owner should be available to answer those questions.
  • 02:51 Finally we see that senior management has no responsibility or deliverables.
  • 02:56 Again, they selected the scrum team members,
  • 02:58 now they can wait a few weeks to see what the team generates.
  • 03:02 Let's look at a project example and how progress is tracked on the scrum board and
  • 03:06 the burndown chart.
  • 03:07 In this case, there were four major stories.
  • 03:10 An infrastructure story added by the team and three stories from the product owner,
  • 03:15 that made up the sprint backlog.
  • 03:17 One of those stories, number two,
  • 03:19 was a chapter story that was further divided into 15 detailed stories.
  • 03:24 Each of those stories is comprised of several tasks that can be completed within
  • 03:28 a few hours.
  • 03:29 So let's look at the scrum board for this project.
  • 03:32 The scrum board is for a time about halfway through the project.
  • 03:36 You can see that the infrastructure story and
  • 03:39 priority number one story are completed in the Done column.
  • 03:42 The priority number two story, the chapter which was divided into 15 story
  • 03:47 cards is about a third of the way complete.
  • 03:50 Story cards 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.5 and
  • 03:54 2.6 are done and the first task for 2.4 and 2.7 are done.
  • 04:00 Looking in the WIP column, we see that the second task for 2.4,
  • 04:05 2.7 are in work along with both tasks 2.8.
  • 04:08 The remaining stories TO 9, 10, 11,12, 13,14 and
  • 04:12 15 have not been started yet, nor has the priority number 3 story.
  • 04:18 We also see three roadblocks being worked on by the scrum master.
  • 04:22 When you see a scrum board in action, it makes a lot of sense.
  • 04:26 Now on to the burndown chart, which helps us estimate the overall Sprint completion.
  • 04:31 You can see we started great following the line exactly.
  • 04:34 Then we had a little problem that caused us to revise some estimates upward.
  • 04:39 However, the trend is coming back towards the line so we still have a good chance of
  • 04:43 completing everything on the Sprint backlog by the end of the sprint.
  • 04:47 So plan for your Sprint demo, think through how to present the results
  • 04:53 of what was done on the project and what was not done on the project.

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