Sprint Review Quotes

One August evening in 1996, a publisher named Nigel Newton left his office in London’s Soho district and headed home, carrying a stack of papers. Among them were fifty sample pages from a book he needed to review, but Newton didn’t have high hopes for it. The manuscript had already been rejected by eight other publishers. Newton didn’t read the sample pages that evening. Instead, he handed them over to his eight-year-old daughter, Alice. Alice read them. About an hour later, she returned from her room, her face glowing with excitement. “Dad,” she said, “this is so much better than anything else.” She wouldn’t stop talking about the book. She wanted to finish reading it, and she pestered her father – for months – until he tracked down the rest. Eventually, spurred by his daughter’s insistence, Newton signed the author to a modest contract and printed five hundred copies. That book, which barely made it to the public, was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.fn1

A scrum team typically consists of around seven people who work together in short, sustainable bursts of activity called sprints, with plenty of time for review and reflection built in.

Controls are the mechanisms that you use to align with other leaders you work with, and they can range from defining metrics to sprint planning (although I wouldn’t recommend the latter). There is no universal set of controls—depending on the size of team and your relationships with its leaders, you’ll want to mix and match—but the controls structure itself is universally applicable. Some of the most common controls that I’ve seen and used: Metrics26 align on outcomes while leaving flexibility around how the outcomes are achieved. Visions27 ensure that you agree on long-term direction while preserving short-term flexibility. Strategies28 confirm you have a shared understanding of the current constraints and how to address them. Organization design allows you to coordinate the evolution of a wider organization within the context of sub-organizations. Head count and transfers are the ultimate form of prioritization, and a good forum for validating how organizational priorities align across individual teams. Roadmaps align on problem selection and solution validation. Performance reviews coordinate culture and recognition. Etc. There are an infinite number of other possibilities, many of which are specific to your company’s particular meetings and forums. Start with this list, but don’t stick to it!

Led product team of ten engineers and revamped engineering processes, implementing weekly code sprints, agile methodologies, and code reviews.

In the agile model, every sprint lasts for about 2 to 4 weeks where the developer has to spend 20% time on design, 40% on development and 40% on testing, which includes daily stand up call and other sprint meetings such as planning, review and retrospective.

Turning a Vicious Cycle into a Virtuous Cycle Sketching out feedback loops is very useful when approaching a systems thinking model. For example, I often see the cycle occurring in Figure 20.1. Figure 20.1 The vicious cycle of distrust This vicious cycle increases distrust between management and development as each side games the other to protect itself. Less work gets done, and quality suffers. A significant role of leadership is to identify these vicious cycles and find ways to turn them into virtuous cycles. We do this by changing the vicious cycle of distrust into a virtuous cycle of trust. The greatest opportunity to begin this is in the Sprint Planning and Review meetings and to reinforce it during the Sprint.

The following are the principles and practices that team members need to understand in preparation for their first Sprint: They are committing to Sprint goals as a team, not as individuals committing to their own tasks. The entire team will succeed or fail on this basis. Overcommitting is not a great danger, because they can renegotiate with the Product Owner during the Sprint. Teams new to Scrum are more likely to underestimate their work. Commitment is reciprocal. Management will not change their goals or the Sprint review date without a Sprint reset. The Definition of Done must be clearly understood between the team and the Product Owner. The functionality delivered at the end of the Sprint must reflect this definition. The rules of the Daily Scrum are understood. The purpose and utility of the burndown chart are understood.