What is a sprint review?
The sprint review is the end-of-sprint meeting where the team shows completed work to stakeholders and collects the feedback that will shape the next sprint. It is not a status meeting and not a demo theatre — it is a deliberate, time-boxed conversation about whether what shipped is what was needed.
Sprint review vs sprint retrospective
Often confused, sometimes (mistakenly) merged. They are different meetings with different audiences and different outputs:
- Sprint review — outward facing. Audience: stakeholders. Topic: the product. Output: feedback that shapes the backlog.
- Sprint retrospective — inward facing. Audience: team only. Topic: the process. Output: action items that change how the team works.
Format
- 30-60 minutes, depending on sprint length.
- Walk through completed tickets — show the working software, not slides about it.
- Capture stakeholder feedback as new backlog items, not as commitments for the current sprint.
- End with a brief look at the next sprint goal so stakeholders leave with context, not just impressions.
Use our free Sprint Review Agenda Generator for a structured agenda with sync, async, and hybrid options.
Common failure modes
- Demo theatre — polished slides, rehearsed talking points, no real product. The work degrades because review prep eats sprint time.
- Treating it as a sign-off — turning a feedback meeting into a release-approval gate kills honest feedback.
- Skipping when nothing was completed — the meeting still has value as a stakeholder sync. Hold it.