Friday, June 17, 2011

Don't just review at the end

One essential part of Scrum, that few practitioners argue about, is the end of sprint review. This is a great place to showcase the work completed within the that sprint to any interested parties, but in some teams this is also the first time the product owner gets to see the completed stories.

What happens if a feature isn't quite right, or if we've misunderstood what was wanted? We run the risk of features not being accepted.
Even on a 1 week sprint, waiting until the end to review is too long.

Instead of waiting, collaborate with the product owner throughout development through a series of informal reviews. The earlier you start these the better. By doing this we get feedback earlier, so if something needs to change you haven't gone too far down the wrong path.

Even if you've created mockups its not until the feature starts to become real that we find out if everything is practical or possible.

Frequent informal reviews can this lead to optimizing the created value within the story by producing a better end result. It can also lead to a happier product owner.

Please let me know what you think.

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