Stop Renaming the Sprint Review Meeting

It’s called the "sprint review meeting" for a reason. During this meeting, stakeholders, the product owner and the rest of the team review what was completed during the sprint.

It’s not just a demo, so please don’t call it the "sprint demo." Yes, demonstrating the work that was completed during the sprint is the most visible part of a sprint review. But it’s not just a demo.

I think of a demo as one-directional. I think of a demo as the salesperson at a tradeshow carefully showing what a product will do by following a scripted path through the product’s functionality.

Whereas as a demo is one-directional, a review is two-directional. Instead of just showing the product, a review includes discussion of what meeting participants think of the product.

But I sometimes hear the sprint review called worse things than just the sprint demo.

I’ve heard it called "the showcase."

This is bad because it implies the review should be fancier or more formal than it really should be. I need to dress up for the showcase. Maybe put on a tie. Get my shoes shined. At a review, some team members may not even wear shoes!

The sprint review should not be a formal, fancy meeting. It’s a point-in-time snapshot of where the product is as of the last day of the sprint.

When a team calls it the showcase, they tend to think of the review as being more than this. The same is true when it’s called “the dog and pony show” as I’ve encountered a few times.

But I’ve heard the sprint review called worse. I worked with a team that called it the “Christian and the lions meeting.” The team felt like they were being chewed apart by their stakeholders every two weeks and used that name informally.

Renaming the sprint review changes how everyone thinks of the meeting even if only in small, subtle ways. It’s possible there’s a better name for this meeting, but I haven’t heard it yet. And it’s definitely not one of those I’ve listed here.

By calling it the sprint review, you’ll help your team understand that the meeting is not just a demo, showcase or dog and pony show.