How will you demonstrate it?

One of the most valuable elements of any process implemented in an agile environment is the regularly-scheduled product inspection. In Scrum, this inspection occurs during the Sprint Review. Other teams call this inspection a demo or a showcase. Whatever it’s called, it’s a demonstration of the value that was created (usually in the form of features) since the previous demonstration. It gives your customers an opportunity to see what the team is building, and it provides them an opportunity to adapt the plan based on what has been built so far.

When crafting user stories, it’s helpful to imagine how each story will be demonstrated in the meeting. What can we demonstrate? What can we build that will give our customers the feedback they need to ensure we’re building the right thing? Asking these questions before the story is written has a number of benefits: it requires the team to think about the value of the story, it reminds the team to maintain a customer-focused mindset, and usually results in a more effective demonstration.

Have a suggestion for the Weekly Inspection? I’d love to hear it. @johnkrewson