What is a sprint review?
The sprint review is a Scrum event that takes place at the end of the sprint, just before the retrospective. The purpose of the review is to evaluate the latest features and to consider the plan for the product in the future.
One of the key advantages of Scrum is that it gives increased visibility, control and risk management compared with traditional "waterfall" development. The sprint review is where this happens, by allowing the whole Scrum team to get together with all of their stakeholders and work together to decide the best way forward. There is no prescribed agenda for the sprint review, but a typical flow of this event is as follows:
What was done? The product owner presents a summary of the new features delivered.
Demonstration. The development team show what they have built and how it works.
Market Conditions. The product owner gives an update on any relevant changes to the market their product competes in.
Release Plan and Forecast. The product owner presents the current plan and forecasts delivery dates.
Proposed changes. The whole group collaborate to discuss potential changes to the plan, which may include:
Ideas for new features
Changing the order in which features should be built
Reviewing the scope of upcoming releases
Reviewing the anticipated release dates (in combination with the previous point)
If done well, this event shifts the agenda from a project management mindset of delivering on-time, on-budget; into a product delivery mindset of optimising the value delivered. The release forecast will likely change from the original projection. It is even more likely that the original scope and requirements will not be the best possible version of the product that could be built. An effective sprint review allows all of the decisions made about the product to be re-evaluated so that at each point in time, the plan reflects the best possible course of action.