Tool Mentor: Conducting a Sprint Review with Rational Team Concert
Demonstrate stories implemented in the Sprint and adapt the Release Backlog, as needed

Synopsis

The Sprint Review meeting is scheduled and the entire team attends, including the Product Owner and stakeholders. The Scrum Master facilitates the meeting. The Development Team Members demonstrate the implemented stories and share what went well, what problems they encountered and how they were resolved. The Sprint Goals are evaluated to see how they were met. The entire Scrum team collaborates on what to do next.

Value 

The Sprint Review communicates the value delivered in the current Sprint and results in a revised Release Backlog that will be used to plan the next Sprint.

Prepare

The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that the Sprint Review occurs.  This involves the following steps.

Step Tool guidance

1. Agree on format and content of the Sprint Review

Agree on:

  • who will present and what will be presented
  • who to invite
  • when, where, and how the meeting will be run.

The Sprint Review is time-boxed to 4 hours for a one month Sprint and proportionately less for shorter Sprints.

The Product Owner identifies stakeholders who should be invited.  The entire Scrum team should also be present.

2. Send out invitations

Send out Sprint Review invitations.

See Meetings and Rational Team Concert .

3. Prepare for the meeting

The Development Team prepares to demonstrate the work completed.

The Product Owner prepares to present progress relative to plans. 

Take an end-of-Sprint snapshot of the Sprint Plan.  See Taking a snapshot of a plan.



Conduct

The Scrum Master facilitates the meeting, ensuring that it stays within the allocated time.

Step Tool guidance

1. Introduction

The Scrum Master explains the purpose of the meeting.


2. Summarize work completed during the Sprint 

The Product Owner summarizes the work completed and not completed.

Display the team dashboard:

  • Click Project Dashboards > All [Project name] Dashboards > [Team Name]

Click the General tab and review the content of the All Stories (current Sprint) widget.

Click segments of the pie chart to drill down into the report and display corresponding stories.

Optionally review the Sprint storyboard:

  • Click Plans > All Plans >[Sprint name]
  • Set View As" to Storyboard
  • Review the information on the storyboard

3. Discuss how the Sprint went 

The Development Team discusses what went well during the Sprint, problems, and solutions.

 

4. Demonstrate the completed work

The Development Team demonstrates completed work and gets feedback from the rest of the team and from other stakeholders, such as customers and executives, also attending the meeting. 

5. Discuss progress relative to plans

The Product Owner summarizes progress relative to plans, and whether the timing or content of future releases needs to change.  Progress is described using the following steps.

5.1 Compare plan snapshots

The Product Owner compares the Sprint Plan at the end of the Sprint with the Sprint Plan snapshot from the start of the Sprint.  He/she highlights key changes, such as:

  • changes to the start and end date of the Sprint
  • how many story points were completed in the Sprint vs. estimated
  • the difference in number of work items planned to the Sprint
  • a list of the work items that were modified in the Sprint
See Comparing plan snapshots.

5.2 Review release burndown chart 

The Product Owner uses the release burndown chart to summarizes how quickly the team has delivered backlog items, and how much work the team must still perform to complete a release.

Checking project status by iteration

6. Discuss what to do next

The entire group collaborates on what to do next, so that the Sprint Review provides valuable input to subsequent Sprint Planning.

  • Review of how the marketplace or potential use of the product might have changed what is the most valuable thing to do next; and,
  • Review of the timeline, budget, potential capabilities, and marketplace for the next anticipated release of the product.

7. Ongoing during the meeting

New ideas are captured as stories/epics and added to the Product Backlog to be refined at a later time.

Defects, impediments and risks are logged as they are discovered.

See Creating work items in the web client.

Follow-up

The Scrum Master performs the following housekeeping steps.

Step Tool guidance

1. Standard meeting follow-up items

This includes creating work items from meeting notes, soliciting feedback from absent members, resolving any work item associated with the meeting, and creating snapshots of meeting-related work products.

Meetings and Rational Team Concert

2. Update status of work items 

Make sure that status of the work items is accurate:

  • move incomplete stories to the Release Plan.
  • close stories that were completed but not closed.

Display uncompleted stories.

  • Click Plans > All Plans >[Release name]
  • If necessary, click the Planned items tab.
  • Set View As to Iterations
  • Expand the [Sprint name] section and scan for incomplete stories. 

To move an incomplete story and incomplete child tasks to the release plan:

  • Check one (or more) stories and child tasks using checkboxes at the left.
  • Click Actions > Plan Items For > [Release Name]

More information

See Rational Team Concert tutorial: Conduct Sprint Review for detailed step-by-step guidance. Also see this demo.