One of the things I am asked the most during my Scrum coaching and training is what the difference is between a sprint review and a sprint retrospective. Let’s first examine each separately before attempting to grasp how the sprint review and retrospective differ from one another.
The timebox event known as a sprint produces a progressive portion of the product, or increment, as it is known in Scrum. It is a period of time for the product and roadmap to be examined and modified. It makes it simple for stakeholders and the scrum team to evaluate the sprint’s results.
A sprint is a short project with a specific amount of work that will be completed by the scrum team before the start of the sprint. It is an essential part of the Scrum and agile methodologies.
Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum during Sprint Implementation, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective are the four primary stages of a sprint cycle. The cycle ends with the stages of review and retrospective. Even though some teams refer to them as ceremonies, events are what we refer to as in Scrum.
A scrum team’s sprint review is a formal meeting that involves the scrum master, a product owner, developers (or the development team), and stakeholders. The major goal is to evaluate the product’s development and anticipated completion date. Additionally, it determines the commencement of the product in accordance with client needs and stakeholder expectations.
At the end of the sprint, participants determine the product increment and make changes to the product backlog and roadmap. Decisions could affect the orders for the product backlog, and all stakeholders will discuss and determine whether any adjustments are needed in later sprints.
The goal is to determine a sprint value that is optimum. A demonstration of the product increment and product backlog is conducted during this meeting.
Follow these steps to have a successful Sprint Review meeting:
- Stakeholders are welcome
- Agenda for Sprint Review
- Share the Sprint goal and forecast.
- Product Increment Demonstrations
- Feedback collection
- Product Backlog presentation
What should I look at during a Sprint review meeting?
- Product Increment
- Current Product Backlog
- Sprint Flow
- Timeline and Budgets
- Market conditions
- Steps to optimize the product value
Let’s get started with the following meeting: The Sprint Review meeting is followed by the Sprint Retrospective meeting. The final meeting of a sprint or cycle is the sprint retrospective.
Regarding people & relationships, processes & practices, and the Definition of Done, the scope of genuine improvement is examined. It can also be referred to as an improvement meeting that is held to find and fix prior faults and blunders.
It enables team members, such as product owners, scrum masters, and developers, to consider the real product quality, identify discrepancies, and provide areas for improvement. For the Scrum team, it is an examine and adapt event.
It implies that everyone should decide I’m taking a quick break and going to a store. What should be done “more” to enhance the current procedures, what should be stopped, and “which” things the team should be doing going forward?
How to Perform a Sprint Retrospective
- Goals should be established, and the Scrum team should all participate.
- All members should be given the information.
- Study patterns, carefully examine them, and discover the cause behind them to determine where you went wrong.
- Choose the plan’s course of action and work to address each unique issue or trap.
- Be grateful that the entire sprint went smoothly as well.
- Send a follow-up to end the meeting.
Depending on the product phase and sprint duration, sprint retrospectives can last anywhere from one to three hours. Analysis of the issues, the search for solutions, and rectification are the main topics of this meeting.
What to look for at a Sprint Retrospective Meeting?
- Retrospective obligations from the past
- People’s attitudes toward relationships and collaboration
- the procedures and methods used during the current sprint.
- DONE Tools Definition
Comparison of the Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective
While Sprint Retrospective focuses on the process, Sprint Review focuses on the product. While Sprint Retrospective is focused on people, processes, and tools, Sprint Review is primarily concerned with maximizing and optimizing the value of the product.
Example of the sprint review
Our sprint goal, “Allow less than 35-year-old, non-smoker customer to generate a quote online,” was addressed when we were designing a healthcare insurance product.
Developers then showed stakeholders functional features that met the notion of doneness on the staging server. Some comments were very important in terms of performance and user experience.
Everyone discussed the next areas of attention after receiving input. The group should focus on building to-buy online functionality rather than continuing to develop quote features for other groups. Everyone concurred to keep quoting the family members.
Example of the sprint retrospective
The Scrum team talked about suggestions made at the sprint review and how team dynamics, teamwork, and connections affected the sprint outcome.
Each topic that the group experienced or want to improve was taken into consideration separately. They went over each one, decided to enlist the aid of a user experience specialist, and decided to include performance tests in the DONE definition.
In addition to this, the group opted to use competitive code reviews to focus on the quality of the code and prevent technical debt.
Conclusion:
In summary, both the Sprint Review and the Sprint Retrospective are crucial ceremonies in Agile development, each serving distinct purposes. The Sprint Review focuses on showcasing the product increment to stakeholders, gathering feedback, and ensuring transparency. On the other hand, the Sprint Retrospective centers around continuous improvement by encouraging the team to reflect on their performance and identify areas for growth.
These ceremonies, when conducted effectively, promote collaboration, teamwork, and customer satisfaction, while also driving the team toward excellence in every sprint. Embracing the values of both the Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective empowers Agile teams to adapt to change swiftly, deliver high-value products, and cultivate a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
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