A simple way to play a sprint review session

Original Mike Cohn

How do I get back to the meeting? Different teams, everyone's approach may be different. I would like to introduce one of my favorite ways, especially since this method has withstood the test of time, and for many years I have used it in many, many teams.

Start/stop/Continue

I like to ask team members at a sprint review Meeting 3 questions: What do they want to start? What do they want to stop doing? What do they want to do? This type of meeting therefore has an alias called the start/stop/Continue meeting.

The starting point is what a team member wants the team to add to the process. Some examples are as follows:

• Show the software to the customer a little earlier
• Confirm the acceptance test with the customer earlier
• Do code review
• Attend daily standing meeting on time
• Do not start new requirements until the current requirement is complete

The items on the stop list are those things on the team that people think are inefficient or waste time. The team should stop doing these things. Some examples are as follows:

• Submit your code before you run through all tests
• More than 15 minutes of daily station time
• Skip the Product Backlog refinement meeting when we feel that the current sprint is behind schedule

The thing that goes on the list is the things that the team wants to continue to focus on but haven't gotten into. In other words, anything on the start or stop list above may go to the continuation list and stay on the list for a few sprints.

To do something once it becomes a habit, it will eventually be removed from the continuation list. Otherwise, the continuation of the list will become super verbose!

Ask in a different way

Scrum Master can ask team members in different ways. The simplest thing is to just let them speak out loud. Team members are free to say the things they want to start/stop/continue. This is my default mode.

However, if this is always the case, one sprint, then another sprint, will inevitably make people feel bored. So, I'm going to do some tricks, and sometimes I walk around in the room, asked ask them to give me a matter, maybe two times in the room before they go to the next agenda.

Other times, I'll focus on a particular type of matter-often a matter of stopping. I'll let all the team members speak directly about what they want to stop doing, not to mention anything else. I may be mixed up in two ways. I'll go to everyone's side, asked let them point out the one thing they want to stop doing in the current process.

In the start/stop/Continue review meeting, there are a number of ways that you can mix it up to gather your ideas. These methods are enough for a while to make people feel bored or repetitive.

Vote

After gathering enough ideas, ask team members to vote on one or more of the most important items. When should we start voting? This is often obvious, when creativity fades away and new ideas don't come out so quickly.

Scrum Master allows each team member to vote on the most important one, or can use any typical multi-throw approach. For example, give each team member 3 votes, and they can cast their votes (including all 3 tickets to the same item) according to their wishes.

I like to use the multi-vote approach in the Review Conference. Recalling most of the issues listed in the Conference, in fact, many do not need to take the time to do. Many of them are behavioral. Consider one of the examples given above: to attend the daily stand on time. It doesn't take time. In fact, it may be time-saving.

With multiple choices, the team can choose to change behavior and do something else. Generally speaking, I don't have more than 3 options. Even if they don't take time (or don't take a lot of time), choosing too many things can reduce the importance of those choices.

In addition to voting for new additions, it is also necessary to discuss whether the items on the continuation list have reached expectations and are no longer important or should be removed from the list for any other reason.

Next review

At the next retrospective, I recommend that Scrum Master pass on the ideas that were collected at the previous meeting, including those that were chosen to be executed and not selected. These can serve as the opening discussion for the next retrospective meeting.

I like to write them all down on a large piece of paper and then quietly stick it on the wall. If the team needs it, or if you want to refer to it, these things always stay there quietly. Then I'll organize a new round of "start/stop/Continue" discussions.

What are the benefits?

I found that the benefits of organizing retrospective meetings are fast, easy to do, stress-efficient and effective! The start/stop/Continue meeting is very action-oriented. We didn't take the time to feel the staff. We did not ask the team members how they felt in the sprint, whether they were happy or unhappy, and whether they felt the warmth or the contradiction.

Each of these matters will directly lead to behavioral changes. The team will start doing something, or they will stop doing something, or they will continue to do something until they develop a habit.

I can foresee that many people will say that the feeling of employees is the most serious. We only have to deal with the feelings of people first, we do not know how to take action. That's right! There are some things that are true. However, in a number of other cases, we can directly identify what to do (e.g. "We need to start testing earlier").

This is the advantage of introducing the start/stop/Continue method at the Sprint Review Conference!

A simple way to play a sprint review session