The Importance of the Sprint Demo

The final workday of a sprint is always an exciting day for me. Sometimes the excitement is edged with stress, but ultimately I enjoy the build up in the final days before demoing two week's worth of a Sprint's work. It is also great to see what my teammates are doing. And, of course, there is the endorphin release of having completed another Sprint.

Everyone may not understand or appreciate sprint demos as much as I do. Let me try to relay what I feel is the value of the end of sprint demo and why I love it so much.

What is a Sprint Demo

"Gee whiz, Leif. You've rattled on for two paragraphs. What the heck are you talking about?"

The Sprint Demo --- sometimes called the Sprint Review or Iteration Review --- is yet another valuable ceremony of the Agile development process. Sprints typically are two work weeks in length and developers are assigned user stories to complete during that period. Basically, the Sprint Demo occurs at the end of each sprint, often the last day of the sprint, and brings the entire development team together to review each team member's progress over the sprint. Each team member begins by presenting the user stories they were assigned and then present the output of that labor. That output can be anything from UX documentation, user stories created, a Postman collection, or presentation of the UI. Any work product described in the assigned user story can be presented, time permitting (which will always be a challenge to me as my current teammates can attest).

Gathering together to take a look a team's progress may seem like a team building exercise even without the trust falls. But there is a wealth of value when the team is engaged, and everyone on the team participates.

Where is the Value?

There are layers of potential value available during the Sprint Demo. Value is there for all members of the team, not just the developers. Let's examine some of the basic elements of Sprint Demo value.

Transparency of Effort

By giving everyone time to present the fruits of the labor, it also provides each team member the opportunity to speak to any hidden work that wasn't captured in the creation of the user story. During the work on a user story, undiscovered dependencies or complexity may be discovered. Reporting about those issues can assist all members of the team with avoiding the problems or confusion based on the new information. Generally, this kind of information should be communicated as it is discovered, but the Sprint Demo is a great opportunity to restate these discoveries.

Observation of Progress

Not every developer reviews every pull request, and product owners hardly ever look at code. Even when your team performs with transparency, it can be difficult to understand where your team is and how well a team is progressing.

A very simple demonstration of progress may have a developer load the browser with the application in production to compare it with a browser window with the new code with new code. "Doesn't work here. Works here." But there is another level of progress that can be observed over a series of sprints. When a feature involves API and UI work, the work may occur across several sprints and involve several developers. Viewing each Sprint Demo over several weeks can give you a clear impression every step of the way.

Celebration of Accomplishments

If you wait until all the work on your project or product is completed to celebrate, you are probably going to be too exhausted to enjoy the celebration. Take stock in what you accomplish along the way! As an individual, you can make daily goals for yourself, and reflect on those goals at the end of your day. Think of the Sprint Demo as the opportunity for your team to celebrate the accomplishments together. There is no need for cake and balloons, though those can be nice. Just show some empathy and congratulate your project partners.

Who Benefits from the Sprint Demo

While the benefits of the display of effort, progress, and accomplishments might be a generous recommendation for adding and supporting having your team's involvement in the Sprint Demo, you may want more. Lets take a look at how the typical attendees of this ceremony can benefit.

Value for Product Owners

A product owner's responsibility to the vision of the product makes the Sprint Demo valuable. The transparency provided through the presentations can provide insight into the velocity --- the speed to which development work is progressing --- and give a strong indication as to how much confidence the Product Owner should have in the current project schedule. When the Product Owner takes good notes, understanding the team's progress demonstrated during the Sprint Demo should be simplified. Comparing the notes with the Agile Board --- the place tasks are planned and assigned to Sprints --- and with the presentations in the Sprint Demo, the Product Owner can literally predict the future. The Sprint Demo powers a fortune teller's crystal ball.

By listening to each story presented during the Sprint Demo, the Product Owner may gain some great information about details of features. Developers can explain in detail how a feature technically works, which can assist the Product Owner with answering questions in the future. A detail like "The data for the auto-complete input comes from the Personnel database" can be leveraged into some intellectual capital in a future meeting with stakeholders or Product Owners from other projects.

As always, seeing a developer present how a feature really works --- they know how it works because they built it --- is always helpful when it is the Product Owner's time to present. Seeing a feature working will lead to a Product Owner's confidence in demoing that feature to stakeholders in the future.

Value for Managers

The value of the Sprint Demo for technical managers comes while observing each presentation, when presented with the correct amount of transparency, as the team reveals the progress and achievements. Each presentation should reflect the presenter's expected velocity. If the velocity isn't what was expected, or the expected level of transparency doesn't exist, the manager should take appropriate action aimed at getting individual team members and the team as a whole back on track. Getting a team or a member of a team "back on track" can be a challenge. Sometimes it merely requires a check-in meeting with a developer to get the perspective. Sometimes it gets more complicated.

The good news for managers is that with the end-of-each-Sprint frequency of Sprint Demos, a good manager --- one who is paying attention --- can see the signs of poor performance early before they become larger issues and begin to impact the development process. Remember, it is always easier to make small adjustments while the team is performing than it is to find the problem after it has affected an entire team. Catch the problems early!

Value for the Development Team

The primary purpose of the Sprint Demo is to provide the value of seeing the entire team's work progress. Seeing how the new product's feature is coming together can be very healthy for team members. Seeing each team member's progress and hearing the story of the journey helps bring the team together.

We shouldn't dismiss the learning opportunities that the Sprint Demo also provides. Did a team member overcome a challenge? Sharing how they overcame it, that team member is providing knowledge to the whole team. Did a team member figure out where in the network the some data is stored? Or which external team is responsible for an API you can use to get that data? Sharing that information spreads, increasing team knowledge.

By sharing the accomplishments, a team has the opportunity to celebrate the collective wins. By sharing the challenges, including any failures along the way, increases the collective team empathy. We've all been there. Learning from other's mistakes is still learning, just less painful than learning firsthand.

The stress reduction benefits should also be considered in your estimated value of the Sprint Demo. Pressure to perform at a high level can be difficult to shake. The act of presenting during the Sprint Demo can be a great decompressor. Personally, I tend to be exhausted after my Sprint Demo presentations, but in a good way. As though a weight has been lifted. That feeling makes it possible for recovery to occur and make the challenges of the next Sprint easier to accept.

Value for Each Developer

As an individual developer, there is value in the preparation for and the act of giving a presentation. Value can also be found in the content of what is presented.

The act of preparing to present creates a lot of intrinsic value for the person preparing. How a developer organizes around their Sprint Demo may reveal the professional maturity of the presenter. No one should expect every demo to be perfect or even that they should always go smoothly, but each presenter's goal should be to come to the Sprint Demo prepared, with a story to tell, and something to show. How they tell their story and include connections to other team member's work shows how the developer's overall understanding of their role in the project.

We should not short-change the actual act of presenting. Every professional should become comfortable with speaking to an audience. Getting practice speaking in front of groups is often one of the things preventing some people from presenting well. The Sprint Demo --- and, to a lesser extent, the Daily Stand Up Meeting --- gives members of the team a regular opportunity to take center stage. A Sprint Demo presentation doesn't have to be entertaining, but it does need to be concise and precise, things that can show how well a professional is growing in the presentational skills. And who knows if they are going to do a demo to a stakeholder or a user in the future. Having good demo skills are essential.

Discussion of successes and failures, again, are a great way to spread knowledge across the team. As an individual, it can also be a way to release some of the stress built up during a Sprint. This expression of frustration in a group setting can be as relieving to the individual expressing it as it can be helpful to those hearing it. Hearing you teammates empathetically say "I thought I was the only one who felt that way" can make people feel heard and understood.

In Conclusion

The Sprint Demo ceremony is a great way for every member of the team --- including the User Experience, Business Analyst, Product Owner, Management, and Developer roles --- to provide and receive transparency on the project or product feature's progress. Leveraging the value provided by the Sprint Demo takes some work, but the impact on the future of your products and each of your team members can be rewarding.