Many people struggle with the Sprint Review. I already knew this from experience, but my poll on LinkedIn clarified it again. I asked what people found the most important event in Scrum. Of 861 respondents, more than 50% choose the Retrospective. But most surprisingly, the Sprint Review got the lowest score.
Often the reason for this low praise is that either the Scrum Team or the stakeholders don’t understand its purpose. For example, many see the Sprint Review as a demo only. By limiting it to this, you are bound to alienate the people.
These are my arguments to see the Sprint Review as the most important event:
It’s the oldest Scrum Event;
It’s at the heart of Scrum;
It is where you discuss how to maximize the value of the product;
It is where you collaborate with the stakeholders, like customers or users;
It is where the strategic goal is discussed;
It’s the event to discuss all impacting developments;
It fosters decisions to pivot or even stop.
It is where the next sprint objective is conceived;
It functions as a deadline for the Sprint Goal;
It ticks all the boxes of the Agile Manifesto;
It’s here where the Scrum Team and stakeholders discuss the product Increment and collaborate on what to do next. It is at the heart of Scrum.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0794bcab-9da8-4d0b-9b63-c5bb8d3f4d86_4000x3000.jpeg)